What do you see in your housing market this weekend? Builder incentives? How about a related television program? “Real estate brokers and others looking for a deal gathered outside the Fresno County Courthouse for this home foreclosure auction. The number of foreclosed homes in the Valley has risen dramatically these past few months.”
“Foreclosure specialist Billy Richardson said, ‘Families got into these adjustable rates about 1-2 years ago. These interest rates are going up and now their mortgage rates are sometimes doubling. They’re not able to make these payments, so a lot more homes go over here to the auction downtown.’”
“California’s housing production plunged 47% last month as builders curtailed construction while working to whittle down their existing supplies of unsold homes, data released Friday showed.”
“Now they are trying to unload their so-called standing inventory of homes that are under construction or completed. ‘Last year we had a waiting list of buyers interested in our homes before they were even built,’ said Wes Keusder, a builder and chairman of the California Building Industry Assn. ‘This year, however, it seems as though we’re the ones who are waiting.’”
“The home builders’ association reported that 45 percent of builders and developers said they cut prices in September to maintain sales volume. The cost of incentives was not reflected in the new-home price data, which suggested that builders were making even less money from each sale than the shrinking official prices would indicate.”
“Cancellations were also left out of the new-home statistics. The Commerce Department records a new home as sold when the buyer and builder sign a contract. The home builders association said that cancellations had jumped by 50 percent in the last year.”
“‘The cancellation rate is really big,’ said Dave Seiders, chief economist of the association. ‘It’s exploded over the last year.’”
Tags: Mortgages, Real Estate, Homes, Market Conditions
