Loan Modification

Some Good Housing News

By Frank Shump

If you?re an optimist like myself, you?ve probably grown tired of the constant hum of negative or depressing news as it relates to the housing market. More delinquencies here, higher foreclosures there, falling prices over there. After months of terrible news with no end in sight, we?ve seen some hints that things are, at the very least, not world-endingly bad. I wouldn?t go so far as to call it a recovery since, hey, I have no crystal ball that still works, but let?s take a look at what we have.

First, the big news of the day is that pending home sales actually rose 3.2 percent in March. According to the National Association of Realtors, that?s due mostly to the fact that first time buyers are emerging from the woodwork to take advantage of newly affordable prices. Of course the group?s chief economist goes on to point out that this doesn?t mean we?re on the road to recovery just yet. In fact, we?ll need ?several months of sustained growth to demonstrate a recovery in housing, which is necessary for the overall economy to turn around.?

While that?s good news for housing (and first time buyers getting in on what could be the ground floor), there?s also been a slight drop in foreclosures in at least one state that has taken this housing crisis right on the chin: California. The California Mortgage Bankers Association recently reported a slight drop in the delinquency ratio rate for the first quarter of 2009.

Encouraging signs, to be sure, but some obstacles still remain. An increasingly difficult balancing act is getting new buyers connected with a new home at an attractive price. Now more than ever, mortgage lenders are looking very closely at FICO scores and other indications, and if your credit is less than pristine, you won?t be getting that wonderful rate that we keep hearing about. Of course lending to unsuitable buyers was in large part what got us here in the first place, so one can understand lenders? collective erring on the side of caution. Hopefully, as conditions improve, we?ll see newer, reliable borrowers continue to emerge to help buy up low-priced housing at an attractive rate, but we?re not there just yet.

Full post as published by Blown Mortgage on May 04, 2009 (boomark / email).