All the Real Estate News That’s Fit to RE-Print™
Welcome to our weekly edition of Real Estate Investing News This Week. Highlights this week include:
- 946,000 Residential Properties Regained $1 Trillion in Equity
- Sales of Residential Properties Down 16 Percent
- Existing Home Sales Fall in August
- House Prices Up 4.4 Percent From Year Ago
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.
946,000 Residential Properties Regained 1 Trillion Dollars in Equity Q2
—5.3 Million Properties Remain in Negative Equity—
On Thursday, CoreLogic® released new analysis showing nearly 950,000 homes returned to positive equity in the second quarter of 2014, bringing the total number of mortgaged residential properties with equity in the U.S. to more than 44 million.
Nationwide, borrower equity increased year over year by approximately $1 trillion in Q2 2014.
The CoreLogic analysis indicates that approximately 5.3 million homes, or 10.7 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage, were still in negative equity as of Q2 2014 compared to 6.3 million homes, or 12.7 percent, for Q1 2014.
Full report with charts here: CoreLogic Q2 2014 Equity Report >>>
Appreciation Slows in 63 Percent of All Major Markets
—Sales of Residential Properties Down 16 Percent—
On Thursday, RealtyTrac® released its August 2014 U.S Residential & Foreclosure Sales Report. The report shows that U.S. residential properties, including single family homes, condominiums and townhomes, sold at an estimated annual pace of 4,508,559 in August, down 16 percent from a year ago.
That is the fourth consecutive month where annualized sales volume has decreased on a year-over-year basis.
Existing Home Sales Fall in August
After four consecutive months of gains, existing-home sales slipped in August as investors paying in cash retreated from the market, according to the National Association of Realtors®.
Total existing-home sales, which are completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, decreased to 5.3 percent below the level from last August.
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, says sales activity fell last month as investors stepped away. “There was a marked decline in all-cash sales from investors,” he said.
House Prices Up 4.4 Percent From Year Ago
On Wednesday, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) reported that from July 2013 to July 2014, house prices were up 4.4 percent. The U.S. index is 6.4 percent below its April 2007 peak and is roughly the same as the July 2005 index level. This is the eighth consecutive monthly house price increase.