New figures show bank-owned homes or those facing foreclosure no longer dominate the resale market, and homes for sale under normal circumstances now account for about half of real estate listings. That’s a switch from a year ago, when distressed properties accounted for 70 percent of listings.

“Normal sales are gaining traction,” said David Dabby, a real estate consultant in Coral Gables. “The normal market is separating itself.”

Douglas Elliman, a brokerage based in Miami Beach, issued a report Thursday showing significant price increases in some of the region’s prime real estate markets. The report estimates the median sales price for a single-family home along the coast in Miami-Dade — generally east of I-95 — increased 26 percent to $176,000 between the start of 2011 and the start of 2012. Analysts credited the shift with a decline in distressed properties: 65 percent of the market in 2011 to 48 percent in 2012. That’s still a long way from normal — Dabby said distressed real estate typically accounts for only about 7 percent of South Florida’s market.

The Douglas Elliman report highlights a common refrain from the real estate industry as it climbs back from a historic crash in values, brought on by too much faith in the housing market during the boom. But the figures also capture the dynamics of South Florida real estate, where sales volume has been surging in recent years while prices have been either approaching a plateau or bouncing off the bottom.

Distressed properties tend to go for much less than homes sold under normal circumstances for a number of reason, brokers said. For one, they are often smaller and in less desirable neighborhoods. With a bank involved, buyers often will try to “steal” a distressed home with a low-ball offer — a tactic less likely to work if the owner faces no mortgage woes.

“They know the seller isn’t desperate,” said Vanessa Grout, president of Douglas Elliman Florida. “Every buyer wants a desperate seller. And every seller wants to make it seem that he doesn’t need to sell.”

The new parity between distressed and non-distressed property was largely expected, and the big question is how long it will last. Banks have been holding off foreclosing on properties in the wake of the so-called “robo-signing” scandal, in which major lenders were accused of shoddy paperwork tied to delinquent loans. But with a national settlement reached last year, the foreclosure pipeline should become active again in 2012.

Industry watchers expect such a surge of foreclosed properties that Moody’s predicts a 12 percent drop in South Florida property values this year — on top of the nearly 50 percent drop since the market’s peak in 2006. Condo Vultures, a brokerage that tracks distressed real estate, recently reported a surge in bank repossessions in South Florida: 10,000 in the first three months of 2012.

“This is the first time since 2007 where we have seen at least 10,000 repossessions in the first quarter,” said Peter Zalewski, founder of Condo Vultures. “There is a huge disconnect.”

Zalewski said the repossessions show a wave of distressed properties coming on the market, once banks feel it is a good time to sell. If they can wait, they’re likely to get higher prices. The crush of distressed properties has helped keep values down. The Keyes Co. brokerage cited South Florida figures showing the average distressed home this year is selling for $140,000, versus $265,000 for a non-distressed home.

“It’s a tale of two cities,’’ said Keyes President Mike Pappas.

©2012 by Douglas Hanks, sunsentinel.com®

Fort Lauderdale ranked No. 17 and Miami at No. 18 in the country. Chicago was the top searched market and Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater ranked tops in Florida, coming in No. 5 in the country.

Median list prices for homes in Fort Lauderdale hit $168,000 in March 2012, a 8.39 percent increase from the same month last year and a 1.82 percent increase from February 2012. Median list prices for homes in Miami, FL hit $269,000 in March 2012, a 22.27 percent increase over last March and a 1.51 percent increase from February 2012.

The national median list price in March 2012 was $189,900, a 5.56 percent increase compared to March 2011.

Inventory levels are dropping dramatically in both Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Homes actively for sale in Miami in March 2012 leveled out at 11,914, a 42.34 percent decrease compared to March 2011. Inventory of sale homes in Fort Lauderdale for March 2012 were at 12,434, a 39.66 percent decrease compared to March 2011. National inventory levels have dropped 21.48 percent compared to march 2011.

© 2012 by Elaine Walker, Miami Herald®

That forecast from Clear Capital would put Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties among the 10 highest-performing large metro markets in the country.

Demand from foreign investors is slowly helping the South Florida market recover, said Alex Villacorta, director of analytics and research at Clear Capital of Truckee, Calif.

Less than a third of all home sales are from a lender. During the housing collapse, about 50 percent of sales involved a bank-owned home, Villacorta said.

Phoenix is projected to have the biggest increase in prices at 12.1 percent. Tampa is next at 11.4 percent and Orlando is third at 9 percent. South Florida is ranked sixth.

Despite the expected gains, prices in many of these hardest-hit markets remain more than 50 percent below peak levels, Clear Capital says. Prices in South Florida are off nearly 60 percent.

“All of these markets still have a long way to go,” Villacorta said.

The firm says its analysis is based on repeat sales of homes and condominiums.

Analysts agree that the South Florida housing market is slowly recovering, but some still expect prices to fall in 2012.

Moody’s Analytics of West Chester, Pa., says it could be 2013 before Palm Beach County hits bottom and 2014 for Broward County.

Many homes are stuck in the foreclosure process now but eventually will come on the market, said Chris Lafakis, an economist covering Florida for Moody’s.

“Banks have this inventory and once that inventory is liquidated, prices will fall,” Lafakis said.

© 2012 by Paul Owers, sunsentinel.com®

The Front Door

Your front door, and every door, needs to be in perfect condition.  If you have a screen door then count that in with this too.  Home buyers start deciding how they feel about the house before they even walk into it so you need their initial impression to be one of perfection if you want to sell a house.

The Roof

The roof is another spot that home buyers look to for an indication of how well you take care of your house.  You want to make sure there aren’t any loose, broken, or missing shingles or any other signs of disrepair.  You want your roof to be immaculate because thoughts of potentially expensive roof repairs will poison any home buyer’s experience of the rest of the house.

Scratches On Cabinets

Scratches on cabinets look bad on their own and again make it look like you might not take good care of the rest of your home.  Luckily, they are easy to fix with any number of products designed for this very purpose and you can find these products at any hardware store.  Fix them before you sell.

Holes From Nails

Nail holes in your walls from pictures and other decorations need to be patched up before you sell your home.  Lightweight putty makes patching up small holes like these easy.  After this is done these walls need to be repainted.  The flawless painting job that you want will often require that the entire wall be repainted and not just the section you patched up.

Leaky Faucets

Leaky faucets are another red flag for buyers.  If you will let a faucet leak even when you plan to show off and sell a house then home buyers will wonder what other home repairs would you let slide.  You can try to fix the problem yourself if you know enough about plumbing or you can call a plumber if it is a more serious problem.  One way or another, take care of your leaky faucets.

Suspicious Smells

You may not notice the various smells lurking around your home but potential home buyers will notice them immediately.  For this reason you want to ban smoking in or even around your house for the duration of the home selling process.  If you can get someone else to take pets in the meantime that might be a good idea too.  The key is to remove smells by thoroughly cleaning every surface and tailoring the cleaning efforts to the type of smell.  A home that looks great but that smells suspicious is not likely to sell soon or for as much as you want to get.

These are the home repairs that you absolutely have to do before you sell a house.  They will raise your home’s perceived value and make selling it so much easier.  And they are a small price to pay for how much more appealing your home will be after they are done.

©2012 realtyexecutivesfl.com®

Official figures show that median Florida property sales prices in January increased 18.8% to $95,000 (€71,000/£60,000) for condominiums and 5.3% to $129,000 (€96,500/£82,000) for single-family homes. The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $154,700 (€115,700/£98.300) in January, a 2% drop from January 2011.

In Broward County for instance, single-family home sales increased by 15%, from 813 to 911, last month compared to January 2011, according to the 26,000-member MIAMI Association of REALTORS and the local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) systems.

The hike in property sales in the region has pushed property prices higher, which is great news for Florida property investors buying homes in the region.

In January, the median sales price of single-family homes in Broward County was $177,000 (€132,400/£112,400), up 7% compared to January 2011. The average sales price for condominiums also increased 7% to $73,500 (€55,000/£46,700) compared to a year prior. Broward County condominium prices have increased 12 out of the last 13 months.

The average sales price for total single-family homes increased 0.4%, from $246,579 (€184,400/£156,600) to $247,635 (€185,200/£157,300). The average sales prices for condominiums rose 11.2%, from $105,895 (€79,200/£67,260) in January 2011 to $117,795 (€88,100/£74,800) last month.

“The Broward County housing market is experiencing consistent strengthening and price appreciation as a result of robust demand and diminishing supply,” said Rick Burch, 2012 president of the Broward County Board of Governors of the MIAMI Association of REALTORS.

“Despite a significant percentage of distressed sales, prices continue to rise. Loosening unnecessarily strict lending standards would further enhance the performance of the Broward real estate market.”

by Colin Murphy, Torcana

NAR said total existing-home sales — including single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops — were up 4.3 percent from December to January, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.57 million.

While that’s essentially unchanged from the same time a year ago, for-sale inventory was down 20.6 percent from a year ago, to 2.31 million homes, a 6.1-month supply of homes at the current pace of sales.

Many housing analysts view a six-month inventory of homes as a good balance between supply and demand — a larger inventory of homes can indicate an oversupply of homes for sale, which can undermine prices. When inventories drop below six months, the shortage of homes for sale can drive up prices.

“The broad inventory condition can be described as moving into a rough balance, not favoring buyers or sellers,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement.

Yun cited the statistics as evidence that a government proposal to convert bank-owned properties into rentals on a large scale “does not appear to be needed at this time.”

“Foreclosure sales are moving swiftly with ready homebuyers and investors competing in nearly all markets,” he said.

Merrill Lynch analysts Michelle Meyer and Ethan Harris think part of the drop in inventory is due to delays in the foreclosure process in the aftermath of the so-called “robo-signing” scandal.

With top banks nearing a final settlement with state attorneys general, they expect the foreclosure process to accelerate, and for inventory to swell to eight months later this year.

The first REO-to-rental transactions are weeks away, but the property pools offered this year may be smaller and more manageable for groups of qualified local investors than previously assumed, Ken Harney reports.

NAR said foreclosures and short sales accounted for 35 percent of sales in January, and that the national median existing-home price for all housing types was down 2 percent from a year ago, to $154,700.

Investors purchased 23 percent of homes in January, up from 21 percent in December, while the percentage of first-time homebuyers increased from 31 percent in December to 33 percent in January.

Nearly one in every three January home sales was an all-cash transaction. A survey of NAR members showed more than half had at least one contract canceled or delayed in January, often as a result of a mortgage application being turned down or because appraisals come in below the negotiated price.

Single-family home sales were up 3.8 percent from December to January, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.05 million. That’s a 2.3 percent increase from a year ago. The median existing single-family home price was $154,400 in January, down 2.6 percent from the same time a year ago.

Existing condominium and co-op sales increased 8.3 percent from December to January, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 520,000. That’s a 10.3 percent decline from a year ago. The median existing condo price was $156,600 in January, up 2 percent from January 2011.

At the regional level, the West saw the biggest jump in sales, an 8.8 percent increase from December to January. Sales were down 3.1 percent from a year ago, however, and the median price was also down 1.8 percent from January 2011, to $187,100.

The Midwest saw the smallest jump in sales, with sales up 1 percent from December to January. Although that was a 3.2 percent increase from a year ago, the median home price fell 3.9 percent from January 2011, to $122,000.

In the South, existing-home sales rose 3.5 percent from December to January but were unchanged from a year ago. The median price in the South was $134,800, down 0.3 percent from a year ago.

Existing home sales were up 3.4 percent from December to January in the Northeast, and up 7.1 percent from a year ago. At $225,700, the median price in the Northeast dropped 4.2 percent from January 2011.

©2012 Inman News®

“Housing is one of the great investments right now. I tell people all the time when they come up to me, they say, “What should I do, Mr. Trump?” I say go buy a house,” said Donald Trump earlier today on CNBC.

“It wouldn’t be an obvious mistake to buy a house now,” hedged Robert Shiller, barely a few hours later.

Perhaps they were just jumping off Warren Buffett’s declaration yesterday that if he had a way to manage them, he would buy a couple of hundred thousand single family homes and rent them out.

Housing appears to be rated a “buy” these days, especially among investors, who see a ripe and rising rental market and big potential for income. But is it the right time yet for what I call “organic” buyers to get in? By this I mean people buying a home to actually live in it, raise a family in it, let the dog run around in the back yard. If prices are still falling, couldn’t an even better deal be waiting down the road a bit?

No. House prices will continue to fall on a national basis at least through 2012, but you have to look past national headlines to your local market, which is likely already recovering nicely. The trouble with the national numbers is that they are heavily weighted toward the lower end of the market and to the distressed end of the market.

Around 73 percent of homes that sold in January were priced below $250,000, according to the National Association of Realtors. Forty-seven percent of homes sold that same month were considered “distressed,” which is either a foreclosure or a short sale (where the lender allows the borrower to sell for less than the value of the mortgage). With all the activity in these areas, no surprise that prices skew lower.

The $250,000 to $500,000 price range may now be the sweet spot for the market. Sales in January were up in this price range, and if you have good credit, you are within GSE and FHA loan limits in most markets. While FHA just raised its insurance premiums, which may hurt much-needed first-time homebuyer demand, it is still one of the best loan products out there today, especially for those with lower down payments.

You cannot time housing any more than you can time the stock market. True, housing moves far more slowly, but that works to its benefit, as prices don’t rise and fall on daily news or even on major events. Sales have clearly bottomed in housing, and prices always lag sales. They will lag longer this time around, no question, but they will come back. Supply and demand will eventually win out, even after an historic crash. If you can’t get a good mortgage now, then perhaps it’s not your time, but if you can, waiting may not buy you much.

© 2012 Yahoo! Finance

In his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Buffett said he is sure housing will recover eventually and help bring down the nation’s unemployment rate. But he did not predict when that would happen.

Investors eagerly await the letter from Buffett, 81, called the Oracle of Omaha, who built a $44 billion fortune by following a steadfast, no-nonsense investing strategy.

Buffett said housing “remains in a depression of its own,” but he predicted, in typical plainspoken style, that the housing market will come back because some human factors can’t be denied. “People may postpone hitching up during uncertain times, but eventually hormones take over,” he wrote. “And while ‘doubling-up’ may be the initial reaction of some during a recession, living with in-laws can quickly lose its allure.”

Berkshire Hathaway owns more than 80 subsidiaries, including the Geico insurance company and See’s Candy, and five of them rely heavily on construction activity. Those businesses, which include Acme Brick, Clayton Homes and Shaw carpet, generated pretax profit of $513 million last year. That’s well off their $1.8 billion contribution in 2006.

Berkshire’s insurance companies took $1.7 billion in catastrophe losses last year, including from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Berkshire reported only $154 million in underwriting profit, down from $1.3 billion the previous year.

But several of its larger non-insurance businesses – Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad, MidAmerican Energy, Marmon Group, Lubrizol and Iscar – generated record earnings in 2011.

That helped Berkshire generate $10.3 billion in net income, or $6,215 a class A share, last year, down from nearly $13 billion, or $7,928, in 2010.

Buffett reassured Berkshire shareholders that the company has someone in mind to replace him but did not name the successor. He emphasized that he has no plans to leave.

Glenn Tongue, a managing partner at T2 Partners investment firm, said he was struck by the fact that Buffett chose to deal with the succession topic as one of the first items in his letter. “I think this was a forceful and stronger attempt to put this issue to bed,” Tongue said.
Buffett said the Berkshire board is enthusiastic about the executive it has picked and said there are two good back-up candidates. “When a transfer of responsibility is required, it will be seamless, and Berkshire’s prospects will remain bright,” Buffett said.

© Copyright 2012 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc., Josh Fund, The Associated Press.

Given that stock prices tend to anticipate business trends, does that mean a housing market rebound is imminent during the spring home-selling season?

Not necessarily.

The biggest sustained rally in homebuilding stocks in years and recent upbeat home sales data, however, have injected some long-absent optimism into the outlook for housing.

Sales of previously occupied homes rose for three straight months at the end of last year. The glut of houses on the market is diminishing, down to 2.4 million previously owned homes on the market in December from 3.8 million in June. And buyers are slowly regaining a little bit of confidence.

“The housing market enters the spring selling season in absolutely the best shape it’s been since 2005,” says analyst Eric Landry, who follows homebuilding stocks for Morningstar. “Sales will still likely be below normal, but inventories are in the best shape they’ve been in years.”

The government’s landmark $25 billion settlement of foreclosure abuses is the latest dose of good news. Financial analysts see it as helping to clear the way for builders to gear up construction activity.

The CEOs of some of the biggest homebuilders said during earnings conference calls this month that the housing market has stabilized. But they were cautious about making any bullish forecasts.

Major improvement in the industry won’t take place until next year, according to a forecast by the chief economist of the National Association of Home Builders, David Crowe.

More important for investors, the big run-up in stock prices in the last four months makes a correction likely soon. Homebuilding stocks have a history of declining after rising in the months ahead of spring selling season.

The current rally is seen by some as the opening act in a multi-year recovery for the stocks. Low interest rates, more affordable home prices and pent-up demand should help them rise further.

But the stocks are no longer cheap. Most are currently trading at roughly 1.5 times book value – considered the best way to value this group. Book value is the value of a company’s assets if it were to be liquidated. Their current value strongly suggests they are overpriced.

Investors would be wise to keep an eye on housing-related stocks. With prices having shot up, though, they should exercise caution. Waiting for a pullback and buying after spring home-selling season, if the industry still has momentum, makes more sense. That should put investors in much better position to profit from the coming rebound.

Here are four stocks to watch, along with an exchange-traded fund that invests in homebuilders:

D.R. Horton Inc. (DHI)
Shares of D.R. Horton are up 74 percent since an industry low-water mark on Oct. 3. That’s well above the 23 percent climb of the Standard & Poor’s 500, but shares are still about where they were two years ago. The company caters mostly to low-end buyers and builds homes in 26 states. Financial analysts believe that its broad customer base can help the company grow annual revenue by double digits for years.

Lennar Corp. (LEN)
With lean construction practices, a healthy balance sheet and other strengths, Morningstar says Lennar sits poised to reap major economic gains from an eventual rebound in housing. Its revenue was up 12.5 percent and orders were up 21 percent in the fourth quarter, its highest growth in several years. The company recently created a distressed real estate unit, Rialto, that allows it to obtain land more cheaply than competitors. It also provides financial services including mortgage financing, title and closing services. Its backlog of orders is 36 percent higher than a year ago, leaving it in good shape to wait for a future surge in sales. The stock is up 88 percent since early October.

Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL)
Toll Brothers builds higher-priced homes in urban markets with job growth, particularly in the Northeast. That focus on the high-end consumer should enable the company to profit from a recovery in housing. Like Lennar, it has a distressed investment arm, Gibraltar, that helps it lock in land at bargain prices in marquee locations, an advantage that will show on the bottom line when home selling picks up. It also has modest net debt of just $400 million. Along with Lennar, it may be the best positioned of the homebuilders to profit from the recovery, according to analyst Jack Micenko of Susquehanna Financial Group. Toll Brothers shares are up 74 percent since early October.

SPDR S&P Homebuilders (XHB)
This exchange-traded fund includes seven of the largest homebuilders. It also owns shares of companies that sell building materials or furniture and other items for the home. Many of the homebuilders are sitting on large piles of cash. That will allow them to expand in the coming years. The fund is cheaper than the other homebuilder ETF, with an expense ratio of 0.35 percent versus 0.47 percent for iShares Dow Jones U.S. Home Construction.

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press, Dave Carpenter, AP personal finance writer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

“This settlement will provide substantial relief to struggling Florida homeowners, and ensures that our state gets its fair share of the relief being provided nationally,” says Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.

According to Bondi, most of the money will go to current homeowners who are underwater – who owe more on a mortgage than their home’s current worth – in the form of principal reductions and/or converting their mortgage interest rate to lower levels. About $170 million will go to homeowners who lost their home in foreclosure.

The settlement applies to clients or past clients of five of the nation’s biggest banks: Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Ally Financial. Other banks may also sign on, though they have not been named.

Negotiations are ongoing. The settlement does not apply to loans held by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Settlement details

Relief won’t be immediate. While the agreement calls for immediate principal reductions for first and second liens, it will take up to two months for negotiators to select an administrator to handle the logistics, up to nine months to identify eligible homeowners and contact them by mail, and up to three years to complete the process.

Underwater homeowners get relief. The agreement calls for Floridians to receive $7.6 billion from banks to pay for refinancing relief, including principal reductions; borrowers with higher interest rates will also be able to refinance at 5.25 percent. While banks will handle the disbursements, state Attorneys General will oversee the process.

Foreclosed owners get cash. Ex-homeowners who lost a home within the past three years will receive about $2,000 each even if their foreclosure did not involve allegations of robo-signing. Critics, however, say that amount is far too low to compensate for their suffering.

Foreclosures could increase. “The immediate results are not going to be all that pleasant,” predicts Mark Vitner, an economist with Wells Fargo. “The amount of foreclosures will actually increase and there will be some additional downward pressure on home prices.” Some homeowners have lived in a home over two years as the foreclosure process crawls through Florida’s legal system. Analysts, such as Vitner, believe the just-announced settlement brings clarity to the process and banks will proceed more quickly to take back homes.

Florida oversight grows stronger. The state will collect $350 million from the settlement to pay for foreclosure prevention programs and to protect consumers.

A new website includes settlement documents, a set of frequently asked questions, breaking information, and addresses for the banks involved in the settlement. It also includes links to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac so homeowners can find out if their mortgage is included in the settlement. For more information, go to NationalMortageSettlement.com.

© 2012 Florida Realtors®