Hope Now Lenders Still Choosing Payment Plans Rather Than More Permanent Fixes
Hope Now, the consortium of banks, mortgage companies and credit counselors hoping to stem the housing crisis, released its August numbers. New foreclosure starts dropped by more than 25% to 224,000. The number of people who actually lost their homes in foreclosure sales was down 16% to 75,000.
Hope Now says the numbers show its program to workout loans is working. ”Our data suggests a correlation between the drop in foreclosures and the increase in work-out solutions to help at-risk borrowers,” said Faith Schwartz, the group’s executive director.
Look deeper into the numbers though. Repayment plans that merely give the borrower an opportunity to catch up on past due payments vastly outnumber loan modifications, where borrowers actually see their interest rates or principal reduced.
Loan modifications are viewed as a more permanent fix because they reduce the monthly payments. Presently repayment plans outnumber loan mods at Hope Now lenders by nearly three-to-one. And the gap is widening. In July the ratio of payment plans to load mods was closer to two-to-one.
If the economy comes back, many of the 3.2 million borrowers with payment plans may get caught up again. If not, they’ll just fall behind again. Hope Now, pay later.
Foreclosure blight: Cleanup crawls along
A controversial $3.9 billion federal program aimed at saving neighborhoods blighted by foreclosure is hitting hurdles that could threaten its effectiveness.Send Us Your Real Estate Questions
We spend a lot of time here on the HotProperty blog gauging the health of the real estate market and pointing to clues about where it might be heading.
But today, we need your help. Tell us about the nagging questions you have about the housing market (example: How hard it really is to get a loan or what's the best way to go about securing one? What might a housing recovery look like? Is this a good time to buy an investment property?)
We'll collect the best questions and try to answer them in a week or two. No question is too small. But we’ll be looking to answer questions that will be helpful to a large number of readers and, preferably, haven’t been answered in previous stories.
So send questions early and often to prashant_gopal@businessweek.com. We've closed the comments on this post because we'd like you to e-mail us directly. If you'd like your name to be included in the story, please send it to us along with a phone number where we can reach you during the day.
Look forward to hearing from you.
UPDATE:
Thanks to those who have already sent in questions. One request, try to word your questions in a way that they're relevant to a larger audience. In other words, rather than spelling out your personal housing situation, ask me a broader question. Here's an example of a great question we received: Does the traditional rule of thumb that housing shouldn't cost more than 2.5 times annual income still apply today?
Keep the questions coming!
Homes: Sell at a loss, buy at a discount
The month Jennifer Galdes moved into her condo in the Albany Park section of Chicago, the local paper suggested that the area was up and coming. Six years later, she's still waiting for a Whole Foods.RBJ Negotiates 343,000SF Boston-Area Warehouse Lease
Real estate advisory firm Richards Barry Joyce & Partners has negotiated a nearly 343,000-square-foot industrial lease renewal and expansion in Northborough, Mass., one of the Boston-areas largest deals of the year.
Berger to Lead NYC Leasing for Monday Properties
Private real estate firm Monday Properties has tapped former Jones Lang LaSalle vice president Jordan Berger as the firms new director in its New York office.
New Home Sales Lose Momentum in August
New home sales, after four months of robust gains, only inched up 0.7% in August, the Commerce Department reported Sept. 25.
The government's monthly new home sales report, which has a wide margin of error, is relatively unreliable. But it follows disappointing results for existing home sales and housing starts.
Existing home sales dropped 2.7% in August on a seasonally-adjusted basis -- the first decline in five months, the National Association of Realtors reported Sept. 24. And single-family home housing starts dropped 3% in August from the previous month when adjusted for seasonal variations.
Patrick Newport, and economist with IHS Global Insight, said it's not clear why sales wouldn't increase more, especially with the $8,000 federal tax credit for first-time buyers set to expire at the end of November. Buyers should be rushing to take advantage of the incentive before it vanishes (Some of them, of course, might be aware that Congress is mulling over the idea of extending and even expanding the credit to include all buyers).
"Three independent sources [new home sales, housing starts, and existing home sales reports] are telling us the market weakened in August," said Patrick Newport, an economist with IHS Global Insight. "I'm just not sure what is happening."
But Zach Pandl, an economist at Nomura Securities, isn't concerned about monthly fluctuations. He expects the last-minute rush of buyers using the tax credit to boost sales in September.
The good news is that inventories of unsold new and existing homes continued to drop in August, Pandle said.
"Overall, I don't think much has changed here," said Pandl, who says the housing market is now strong enough to stabilize even without the $8,000 credit. "It's unreasonable to expect a smooth upward march. It's going to be a choppy, challenging recovery."
Manhattan Apartments: Free Rent But Still Not Cheap
The analysts at the investment firm Sandler O’Neil recently did a tour of the Manhattan apartment market with some of the biggest publicly-traded management companies including Avalon Bay and Equity Residential.
The news is that rents are off approximately 15%, much as in other parts of the country. The vancancy rate is up to 6%. In the past, Manhattan apartment buildings were almost always fully leased.
New tenants are demanding at least one month free rent. In some cases landlords are also paying the real estate agent’s fee—typically a month and a half’s rent. Tenants in New York used to get stuck paying that in the past.
The concessions are keeping traffic high, Sandler O’Neil says, as some chronic "deal shoppers" look for the best rent. The lower rents have also attracted some tenants from the Boroughs and New Jersey to move to Manhattan. Some tenants have traded down to smaller units or taken on a roommate to reduce their expenses.
Keep in mind we’re still talking about expensive apartments. A 1 bedroom that rented last year for $4,400 is only down to $3,700 now.
Buyer’s market for home improvements
Your big remodeling plans may be on hold for a while, but that doesn't mean you have to miss out on this buyer's market for home improvements. Just go small.Housing industry to Cuomo: Let’s work together
The housing industry has been universal in its opposition to the Home Valuation Code of Conduct, and on Tuesday leaders met with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to discuss modifying the rules.:: Next Page →