Las Vegas home sales edged up slightly in February, but nothing seems to stop falling prices, which have dropped 50 percent from their peak. The Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported this week that the median home price fell 2.7 percent in February to $155,603. That’s down from $160,000 in January and 37 percent from February 2008. The $155,603 price marks a 50.6 percent decline from the market’s peak in June 2006 when the median price was $315,000, according to the Realtors’ group. The organization tracks only single-family homes sales on the Multiple Listing Service.

via lasvegassun.com

First-time buyers' loans numbered 8,900 in January, a fall of 27 per cent from the previous month and 51 per cent lower than in January 2008. In monetary terms, January's loans to first-time buyers (FTBs) totalled £962 million, 30 per cent lower than December and 59 per cent lower than January of last year. The average FTB loan-to-value (LTV) was 76 per cent (89 per cent in January 2008) meaning the average deposit paid was 24 per cent, the highest amount on record, says the CML.

via findaproperty.com

CRISTINA Sipp is one of thousands of people who has been missing out on all those big interest rate cuts - but it's not because she fixed the rate on her home loan.
The Ingleburn mother is with a lender that hasn't been cutting its variable rate. GE Money gave Ms Sipp none of last month's 1 per cent cut to official interest rates.

via news.com.au

The foreclosure picture suddenly darkened again in February. More than 74,000 homes were lost to bank repossessions during the month, up from 67,000 in January, according to a regular monthly report from RealtyTrac, the online marketer of foreclosed properties. Nearly 1.2 million have been lost since the foreclosure crisis hit in August 2007. The number of foreclosure filings rose 6% during the month after falling 10% in January. Worse, filings leaped nearly 30% compared with February 2008.

via money.cnn.com

Rising unemployment is delivering another blow to the depressed U.S. housing market. After months of declines in the number of foreclosures despite rising mortgage defaults, with a barricade of state and lender moratoriums preventing repossessions, foreclosures rose 6% in February from the month before, with 209,631 filings in all, according to Irvine, Calif.-based data firm RealtyTrac. Compared to the corresponding month a year ago, foreclosures were up 30%.

via forbes.com

As homeowners try to refinance their mortgages at lower rates, their home equity lenders are telling them, "Not so fast." Home equity lenders are throwing roadblocks in front of their clients who want to refinance their primary mortgages. In some cases, they delay refinances for a month or more. In other cases, they block homeowners from refinancing altogether -- all because of something called "resubordination." "It can completely blow a refi out of the water," says Christopher Cruise, senior loan officer for GOTeHomeLoans.com in Bethesda, Md.

via abcactionnews.com

Average residential mortgage rates declined to a near-record low, driven mainly by refinancing activity, according to survey data from the Mortgage Bankers Association. For the week ended March 6, mortgage applications were up about 11.6 percent from the previous week and up 5.7 percent from the same week a year ago. Refinancing accounted for 67.9 percent of all applications. Based on an 80 percent loan-to-value, the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage dropped to 4.96 percent from 5.14 percent, while points increased to 1.16 from 1.05 for the week.

via bizjournals.com

The Southwest Multiple Listing Service Inc., reports that both Albuquerque and Rio Rancho showed increases in the median sales prices of homes in February. The monthly median price jumped from $175,000 to $185,000, however, overall home sales declined by more than 35 percent compared to Feb. 2008. “The increase of 25.1 percent [in the median home price] from last year for Rio Rancho is probably because we have seen a number of foreclosures eliminated from the market,” said Don Padilla, 2009 chair of the Greater Albuquerque Association of Realtors.

via bizjournals.com

AFTER looking at several houses to buy in Windhoek, we finally found “The One”, a townhouse in the Oryx Grove Complex (Olympia). We found it with the help of Glenda, a property agent of Greendoor Properties. We liked the house so much that the day after seeing it for the first time, we met at the complex and discussed our 100% interest in purchasing the unit with the owner and property agent as witness to such discussion. Two other people also witnessed such arrangement, our parents.

via informante.web.na

Despite halts on new foreclosures by several major lenders, the number of households threatened with losing their homes rose 30 percent in February from last year's levels, RealtyTrac reported Thursday. Nationwide, nearly 291,000 homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice last month, up 6 percent from January, according to the Irvine, Calif-based company. While foreclosures are highly concentrated in the Western states and Florida, the problem is spreading to states like Idaho, Illinois and Oregon as the U.S. economy worsens.

via miamiherald.com

The number of net sales agreed (sales agreed without any fall-throughs) is 37 per cent higher than in early March 2008, says the agency, while in London they are up by 21 per cent on the same period last year. Hamptons International says the increase is directly linked to the rise in the number of potential buyers, which has reached a ten-month peak. There are now nine new prospective buyers registering for every new property on the market, says the report.

via findaproperty.com

RBS (RBS) has promised to provide £1.7 billion-worth of mortgage finance to Scottish homebuyers during 2008.
The lender will also continue to offer loans of up to 90% of a property’s value, which should help first-time buyers enter the market. Buyer enquiries have risen nationally in the recent weeks as falling house prices and interest rates improve affordability and the bank has made it clear that it will support the Scottish housing market with further funds, if demand takes off.

via financemarkets.co.uk

The House last week passed a housing aid bill that would allow bankruptcy judges to adjust the mortgages of financially stressed homeowners. Lawmakers voted 234-191 for the bill, which contained other housing aid initiatives. It revamped the Hope for Homeowners program that was enacted last summer but isn't helping significant numbers of troubled borrowers.

via lvrj.com

President Barack Obama plans to spend $275.0 billion to rework or modify up to 9.0 million troubled American mortgages, but his program isn't likely to help anywhere near that many people. The U.S. government recently launched a two-pronged plan to stem mortgage foreclosures, which have been rising as a result of the housing crisis that began in the subprime loan market. One is aimed at wobbly borrowers who bought too much house. The other targets borrowers with better credit and homes that have fallen in value, getting them lower payments on existing government-backed loans.

via forbes.com

U.S. mortgage applications rose for the first time in three weeks as near record-low interest rates spurred demand for home refinancing and purchase loans, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday. The jump in demand came several weeks after the unveiling of the strongest government action yet to aid homeowners since the housing market's meltdown began and may help gauge what is in store this spring, the peak home-buying season.

via money.cnn.com