Dennis Norman Musings

Dennis Norman

By: Dennis Norman

Earlier this month I did a post about the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC) which is scheduled to take effect May 1st (click HERE to see post)

Last week, Charles McMillan, the President of the National Association of REALTORS(R) sent letters to Fannie Mae President and CEO Michael Williams and Freddie Mac Interim President and CEO John Koskinen requesting that the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC) be delayed until May 1, 2010. Read more…

By: Dennis Norman

Today the National Association of REALTORS(R) released its existing home sales report for March showing sales in the U.S. dropped 3% from February and were down 7.1% from last year.

The Northeast saw the biggest drop in sales coming in 8% below February and the Midwest fared the best coming in with numbers the same as February.

Median home prices were up 4.1% in the U.S. for March over February.  See my post at Real Estate Consumer News for complete details on this report.

By: Dennis Norman

Today the Federal Reserve Board, in it’s monthly Beige Book, said about Real Estate and Construction that “housing markets remained depressed overall, but there were some signs that conditions may be stabilizing.” 

This is encouraging and is consistent with my recent comments in posts that I think perhaps we are nearing the bottom of the market.  As I have said before I think it is going to be a slow recovery, but stabilizing the market would be a huge step in the right direction. Read more…

By: Dennis Norman

After May1st Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will no longer accept loans that do not comply with The new Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC).

Since between Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac they control about 90% of the secondary mortgage market in America this will most likely affect real estate investors one way or another.

The new HVCC states “No employee, director, officer, or agent of the lender, or any other third party acting as joint venture partner, independent contractor, appraisal management company, or partner on behalf of the lender, shall influence or attempt to influence the development, reporting, result, or review of an appraisal through coercion, extortion, collusion,compensation, instruction, inducement, intimidation, bribery, or in any other manner…”.  It then goes on to list 10 specific practices or acts that are not allowed as well as additional regulations.  Basically it means “hands off” to lenders when it comes to appraisers.  For the complete code click on the HVCC link above. Read more…

By: Dennis Norman

Yesterday the National Association of REALTORS(R) issued their Pending Home Sales Index report for February which showed, for the U.S., a 2.1% increase over January.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said “Pending home sales have a way to go for there to be a meaningful increase, but recent increases in shopping activity are hopeful indicators that we’ll see additional sales gains.”

Pending home sales give us a peak into the future as to where sales may be headed since most of the pending sales will close in the two months following.  Therefore the expected result would be increase existing home sales for March and April provided the sales activity continues.

We will have to wait until the National Association of REALTORS(R) releases its report on existing home sales for March on April 23rd to see if this holds.  I will remind you, that as I wrote about in a post last month, existing home sales for February was up so if March does in fact show an increase as well it will be the second month in a row and perhaps the beginning of a trend.

If you are an investor wanting to take advantage of the opportunities out there but have been sitting on the sideline “waiting for the bottom” now could perhaps be the time to consider doing something.

By: Dennis Norman

Dennis Norman

Yesterday the National Association of REALTORS(R) released its existing home sales report for February and it contained some good news.  According to the report existing home sales in the U.S. increased 5.1% in February over January although the rate is still down 4.6% from the same time last year. 

Granted it takes more than one month of good news to show a positive trend but maybe we are getting close.  Median home prices in the report were looking as if there may be some stability coming as well.  For complete details please see my post on the real estate consumer blog, Real Estate Consumer news.

By: Dennis Norman

A couple of days ago I wrote a post about a company called Agoraseto, LLC that is trying a unique approach to selling homes they own as well as providing financing for their buyers.

To find out more about this innovative approach to selling homes I conducted an E-View ^TM  with Peter Atsiknoudas from Agoraseto, LLC: Read more…