Melbourne Area Blog

There are two government programs aimed at home buyers/owners.

The first is the First Time Home Buyers tax credit. This has gone through several changes this year. As it stands now a first time home buyer (you will qualify for this if you have not owned a home in the past 3 years) can receive a tax credit of $8,000 if you purchase a home between January 1st, 2009 and December 1, 2009 (time is running out!). This credit does not need to be paid back and there are now several lenders who are offering bridge loans for the $8,000 so it can be used as closing or down payment assistance. Income limitations are - adjusted gross income of $75,000 for a single person or $150,000 for married couples. With the changes this year this program has helped in the sale of homes in the lower end of the market.

The Making Homes Affordable program has been disappointing. It has two parts:

Part 1 - Refinancing... this applies if your mortgage is for more than your home is currently worth. In order to qualify for this your mortgage must be underwritten by either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. You can refinance up to 105% of your current homes value (soon to be raised to 125%.... isn't this part of what caused the real estate crisis??), and you have 20% in equity you can qualify. If you have an FHA or VA loan it does not qualify.

Part 2 - Loan Modification... this gets me crazy! The idea here was to modify a mortgage with an interest rate of 2% to lower the monthly payments on the front end of the loan. This did little to help those who were falling behind on there payments. I have heard from some that they were offered interest only for a year (again, isn't this part of what caused the real estate crisis?) and the principle not paid would be on the back end of the loan. Also, some were asked to pay closing costs for a loan modification.

My goal was to address this issue a week or so ago. In looking at articles written about these programs I came across an interesting piece written by Joe Nocerno from the New York Times on July 10th. Please take a moment and click on the link to read a very informative article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/business/11nocera.html?_r=1

As we are nearing the end of what is normally considered our busy season there are indications that we are reaching a "transitional" market.  As mentioned in previous posts the inventory on resale homes has decreased considerably since the beginning of the year. There are currently just over 4500 resale homes on the market county wide. At the end of last year that number was above 7200.

At the beginning of every month I post the number of new listings and the number of sales compared to the same month of the previous year. The month of June 2009 showed another increase - 14% - compared to June of 2008. It will be interesting to see the numbers for July as not only has the inventory decreased but there have been fewer new listings on the market.

Twice in the past month I have been in a "multiple offer" situation. It is similar to several years ago at the start of the boom when the inventory was low. We would watch daily for new listings to show our buyers, and if priced right and in good condition there were multiple offers. So although there are many homes still on the market we are waiting for new listings. If a home is in good condition and priced at or below current market value it should be a quick sale!

June Real Estate Stats

Following are the statistics for real estate listings in Brevard County for June 2009. Also, the number of real estate sales in Brevard County for the same time period.

New Listings Single Family        1070

Sold Listings Single Family          676

New Listings Condos                 219

Sold Listings Condos                 101

New Listings Townhomes            81

Sold Listings Condos                  43