Northern Virginia Real Estate

In a suprising move between regulary schedule meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee meetings, the Federal Reserve lowered the federal runds rate by 75 basis points to 3-1/2.  From the committee’s press release:

 ”The Federal Open Market Committee has decided to lower its target for the federal funds rate 75 basis points to 3-1/2 percent.

The Committee took this action in view of a weakening of the economic outlook and increasing downside risks to growth.  While strains in short-term funding markets have eased somewhat, broader financial market conditions have continued to deteriorate and credit has tightened further for some businesses and households.  Moreover, incoming information indicates a deepening of the housing contraction as well as some softening in labor markets.”

This will hopefully result in more home buyer’s taking the plunge to buy a home as well as releiving some of the pressure on current home owners with adjustable rate mortgages.

- Frank

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
Real Estate Consultant
http://www.northvirginiahomes.com/
http://www.agent-wealth.com/

Keller Williams Fairfax Gateway
12700 Fair Lakes Circle Suite 120
Fairfax, VA 22033

Below is a graph of average sales prices by county for the years 2004 - 2007.  The graph clearly shows the 2005 peak in the northern Virginia market.

- Frank

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
Real Estate Consultant
http://www.northvirginiahomes.com/
http://www.agent-wealth.com/

Keller Williams Fairfax Gateway
12700 Fair Lakes Circle Suite 120
Fairfax, VA 22033

We have posted the 2007 3rd Quarter reports for most of the Northern Virginia Counties. You can see home sales and price changes for Northern Virginia Counties by zip code. I highly recommend all northern Virginia home owners and prospective home owners take a look at them.

Both Prince William & Loudoun County average sales prices are down significantly over the 3rd quarter last year with Fairfax County actually showing an increase over last year’s 3rd quater.  I plan to post some graphs in the next week or so that should make it a little easier to see the trends.

Here is the link:

http://www.northvirginiahomes.com/quarterly-reports-2007.html

- Frank

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
Real Estate Consultant
http://www.northvirginiahomes.com/
http://www.agent-wealth.com/

Keller Williams Fairfax Gateway
12700 Fair Lakes Circle Suite 120
Fairfax, VA 22033

We have  posted the 2007 2nd Quarter reports for most of the Northern Virginia Counties.  You can see home sales and price changes for Northern Virginia Counties by zip code.  I highly recommend all northern Virginia home owners take a look at their area.

Here is the link:

http://www.northvirginiahomes.com/quarterly-reports-2007.html

- Frank

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
Real Estate Consultant
http://www.northvirginiahomes.com/
http://www.agent-wealth.com/

Keller Williams Fairfax Gateway
12700 Fair Lakes Circle Suite 120
Fairfax, VA 22033  

On Tuesday (9/18/07) the Federal Reserve lowered its benchmark interest rate by a half point to 4.75 percent, the first cut in four years, to protect the U.S. from sinking into a recession sparked by fallout from the housing-market collapse.

“Today’s action is intended to help forestall some of the adverse effects on the broader economy that might otherwise arise from the disruptions in financial markets,” the Federal Open Market Committee said in a statement after meeting in Washington. The central bank will “act as needed to foster price stability and sustainable economic growth.”

All I can  say is, it’s about time!  Some of us have been predicting bad things for awhile now and calling on the fed to take action.  It’s pretty obvious that, given the extent to which the U.S. economy is driven by consumer spending, any change that would result in a large number of consumers having less money to spend, such as the loss of or in some cases the complete collapse of home owner  equity, would affect the economy as a whole.  To think otherwise is really wishfull thinking.

- Frank

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
Real Estate Consultant
http://www.northvirginiahomes.com/
http://www.agent-wealth.com/

Keller Williams Fairfax Gateway
12700 Fair Lakes Circle Suite 120
Fairfax, VA 22033  

Just a quick note to let everyone know that  we’ve posted the 2007 1st quarter reports for the major northern Virginia counties here:

http://northvirginiahomes.com/quarterly-reports-2007.html

The nice thing about these reports is that they are broken down by zip code so you can easily see the number of homes sold/on the market, average price and the percentage change for these statistics for your area.

We also have previous years listed here for comparison:

http://northvirginiahomes.com/quarterly-reports.html

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
Real Estate Consultant
http://www.northvirginiahomes.com/
http://www.agent-wealth.com/

Keller Williams Fairfax Gateway
12700 Fair Lakes Circle Suite 120
Fairfax, VA 22033  

An increase in defaults in subprime mortgages originated by small lenders over the last couple of years has prompted big banks and investors that purchased these mortgages to order the lenders to buy them back.

Many of these subprime originators are now facing bankruptcy because  they don’t have the money to comply with these repurchase demands.

New Century Financial is among the lenders on the brink of bankruptcy due to repurchase orders from Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group, Credit Suisse Group, IXIS Real Estate Capital Inc. and Bank of America Corp.

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
Real Estate Consultant
http://www.northvirginiahomes.com/
http://www.agent-wealth.com/

Keller Williams Fairfax Gateway
12700 Fair Lakes Circle Suite 120
Fairfax, VA 22033  

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their existing home sales report recently showing existing home sales are still off 3.4 percent from one year earlier. The report also indicated that home values fell 1.5 percent from just one year earlier, which makes it the the 7^th straight month that home values have declined.

Single-family home sales are 3.4 percent below the 6.09 million-unit pace in February 2006.  The median existing single-family home price was $211,100 in February, down 1.5 percent from a year ago.

The report included some more bad news for total housing inventorys levels which rose 5.9 percent at the end  of February to 3.75 million existing homes available for sale which is a 6.7 month supply at the current sales pace compared with a 6.6 month supply in Janaury.  The rise in inventory will likely put further downward pressure on home prices.

Existing home sales in the Northereast surged 14.2 percent to a level of 1.21 million in February, and are 3.4 percent higher than February 2006.  The median existing home price in the Northereast was $265,900, down 1.4 percent from a year ago.

Speculation about a recovery in the housing market, in particular the new home market, has centered around the rising costs of material and labor for builders and the still favorable interest rate market.  In addition, the Northern Virginia Metro area employment growth will certainly work in our favor.

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
Real Estate Consultant
http://www.northvirginiahomes.com/
http://www.agent-wealth.com/

Keller Williams Fairfax Gateway
12700 Fair Lakes Circle Suite 120
Fairfax, VA 22033

November brought some welcome news that Existing home sales were up but the price of homes sold in November fell for the fourth consecutive month. 

The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of previously owned homes rose 0.6 percent in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.28 million units. That followed a 0.5 percent sales increase in October and marked the first back-to-back sales gains since the spring of 2005. 

The median price for an existing home sold in November dropped to $218,000, down 3.1 percent from the price a year ago. It was the first time on record that sales prices compared to a year ago have fallen for four straight months. The report on existing home sales offered some hope that the housing slump may be bottoming out. It followed a report Wednesday that showed that new home sales rose 3.4 percent in November, the third gain in the past four months. Rates on 30-year mortgages rose for a third straight week as investors viewed improving economic reports as a sign that the Federal Reserve will not quickly cut interest rates

Mortgage giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.18 percent this week. That was up from 6.13 percent last week. However, it was still well below the high point for this year, which was 6.80 percent back in July.

The increase in recent weeks came after a prolonged slide in rates, which helped set the state for a rebound in sales of both new and existing homes.

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
Real Estate Consultant
http://www.northvirginiahomes.com/
http://www.agent-wealth.com/

Keller Williams Fairfax Gateway
12700 Fair Lakes Circle Suite 120
Fairfax, VA 22033

Frankly speaking, it’s starting to look a little brutal here for home sellers.  We’re seeing $50,000 - $100,000 price ”reductions” frequently now and there are small signs of what I would call a “quiet, measured, panic!”. 

In short, Bad Things are Happening. 

Lots of sellers out there.  Some, trying to preserve what equity they have left, others who bought at the top of the market last year are trying to sell and even some who bought earlier this year are worried about a prolonged period of price reductions and are trying to bail out.  The worst are those who HAVE TO SELL, for financial reasons, and can’t.

Recent reports indicate that home sales in Virginia are down about 24% in the April - June quarter this year compared to 2005.  The Northern Virginia Association of Realtors is reporting that July sales were off by a whopping 39% in Northern Virginia!  How’s that for a soft  landing!

The news is even worse for Prince William, Loudoun and the Greater Piedmont counties with sales down 44%.  The number of homes for sale is up 147%.  I continue to hear about Realtors leaving the business and have started getting emails from other Realtors about homes facing foreclosure. 

My Best advice is, if you don’t HAVE to sell in the next year or so…wait this one out.  It appears that it may get worse before it gets better.

Frank Ramos, REALTOR, e-PRO
Real Estate Consultant
http://www.northvirginiahomes.com/
http://www.agent-wealth.com/