The Challenge of the Housing Crisis

President Obama unveiled his ambitious plan to help up to 9 million American homeowners. It’s an issue that has resisted easy answers in the two years since the housing crisis began.

4th Quarter Metro Area Home Prices Down as Buyers Purchase Distressed Property

Most metropolitan area median home prices, impacted by distressed sales, trended down in the fourth quarter from a year earlier. At the same time, existing-home sales rose in only six states from the fourth quarter of 2007, according to the latest survey by the National Association of Realtors®.

Distressed sales – foreclosures and short sales – accounted for 45 percent of transactions in the fourth quarter, dragging down the national median existing single-family price to $180,100, which is 12.4 percent below the fourth quarter of 2007 when conditions were more balanced; the median is where half sold for more and half sold for less. Read the rest »

Renewed Efforts Toward Housing Stabilization

Recommendations to stimulate economic recovery have continued to gain traction: Five freshman U.S. senators have called for the Senate to focus on housing and to expand the home buyer tax credit through 2009.

Congress and the U.S. Department of the Treasury must enact legislative and regulatory priorities to stabilize the housing market and help stop the U.S. financial market’s rapid deterioration, and on Friday, five freshman U.S. senators took decisive action toward this goal. Read the rest »