All the Real Estate News That’s Fit to RE-Print™

Welcome to our weekly edition of Real Estate Investing News This Week. Here’s the best of this week’s real estate news:

• Corelogic says home price are up 12%

• Housing is nearing pre-crisis norms

• Price appreciation prediction says slow-down to 5.4%

• SFR vacancy rate is still above pre-bubble levels

We hope these real estate news items help you stay up-to-date with your real estate investing strategies and inspire some profitable real estate deals for you.

CoreLogic: Home Prices Rise 12 Percent Year Over Year

On Tuesday, Corelogic® released its September Home Price Index report.
Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased 12 percent on a year-over-year basis in September 2013. This change represents the 19th consecutive monthly year-over-year increase in home prices nationally.
Excluding distressed sales, home prices increased on a year-over-year basis by 10.8 percent. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions.

Get your copy of the complete Home Price Index report here >>>

Delinquency Study Indicates Housing Is Nearing Pre-Crisis Norms

By Krista Franks Brock
“Delinquency and foreclosure data reveals the housing market is heading back to pre-crisis norms, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s National Delinquency Survey released Thursday. The percentage of home loans in delinquency or foreclosure was 9.75 percent as of the third quarter, the lowest level in about five years, according to the trade group’s report….
The MBA report revealed drops in 30-, 60-, and 90-day delinquencies as well as foreclosure inventory at the national level….
The national delinquency rate as of the third quarter was 6.41 percent, which is the lowest level since the second quarter of 2008, according to MBA.”

Corelogic Case-Shiller Predict Appreciation Slow-Down to 5.4 Percent

Major Market Overview:

• Home prices rose nearly 90 percent of U.S. metros in Q2 2013

• Nationally, home prices are now 16 percent above the Q4 2011 low

• Home price appreciation is expected to slow to an average 5.4 percent by early 2014

All Those Vacant Homes

Nationally, Vacancy Rate Still Above Pre-Bubble Level
By Jed Kolko, Chief Economist, Trulia
“The 2013 Q3 Census Homeownership and Vacancy survey shows that the vacancy rate is still above its pre-bubble level and remains unchanged from one year earlier. This might come as a surprise to house hunters, who have struggled with limited inventory when trying to find a home to buy or rent, but an unusually high share of vacant homes today is being held off the market.”
In the third quarter of 2013, 10.2% of housing units were vacant, excluding vacant homes that the Census classifies as “seasonal,” such as beach homes. This vacancy rate of 10.2% is well above the pre-bubble level. The vacancy rate today (10.2%) is closer to its peak during the recession (11.0% in Q3 2010) than before the bubble (8.8% in Q3 2000).
Mr. Kolko continues:
“But wait – aren’t homes hard to find? Buyers (and renters, too) have had little to choose from because the listed inventory is low.
The share of the overall housing stock that is listed for sale, based on National Association of Realtors (NAR) and Census data, rose slightly in 2013 Q3 compared to last year but is lower than at any other point during or after the bubble. In other words, the for-sale inventory is back down to its 2000 level, and tight inventory has helped fuel sharp price increases across the country over the past two years.
That means there’s an inventory shortage, but not a housing shortage:”