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Showing posts with label real estate market. Show all posts
Showing posts with label real estate market. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Housing market: 13% of all U.S. homes are vacant

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Dees Illustration
Les Christie
CNN Money

High residential vacancies are killing many housing markets, as foreclosed homes sit on the market and depress sale prices and property values.

And it's only getting worse: The national vacancy rate crept up to just over 13% according to last week's decennial census report. That's up from 12.1% in 2007.

"More vacant homes equal more downward pressure on home prices," said Brad Hunter, chief economist for Metrostudy, a real estate information provider.

Maine had the highest proportion of empty housing stock, at 22.8%. Other states with gluts of empty houses included Vermont (20.5%), Florida (17.5%), Arizona (16.3%) and Alaska (15.9%).

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Wednesday, March 23, 2011

US home sales slump to lowest level since 1960s

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© AFP/Getty Images/File Scott Olson
AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Sales of new houses in the United States have slumped to the lowest level since the 1960's, official data showed Wednesday, offering more evidence of the ongoing crisis in the housing market.

Sales tumbled nearly 17 percent in February to 250,000 units, the Commerce Department said, marking the lowest total since at least 1963, when records were first kept.

At that rate it would take almost nine months for the all the homes on the US market to be sold.

The biggest slowdown in turnover was seen in the country's populous northeast, with sales down 57 percent from January.

The broader data however contained what could be a slight reprieve for struggling homeowners.

The fall was subject to a statistical error of plus or minus 19.1 percent.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license



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Saturday, December 11, 2010

Top 10 States People Are Fleeing

New York, Illinois and Louisiana are expected to lose more residents than they gain this year.

Jenna Goudreau
Forbes

"We're seeing one of the lowest mobility rates in a century," says Nathaniel Karp, chief economist for banking firm BBVA Compass. Karp says the recession has forced many people to stay put because they are unable to sell their homes, cannot find jobs or are unwilling to relocate for work if it means sacrificing a partner's stable position.

The slowdown makes the question of who's moving and why even more significant than in years past. Using 2010 projections by Moody's Economy.com, Forbes ranked the states in which people are leaving faster than they are arriving. Economists report several overlapping trends that may be forcing people out of certain states as much as they are pulling them toward others.

In Pictures: Top 10 States People Are Fleeing

At No.1 on our list, New York is expected to wave goodbye to 49,000 more people than it gains this year. The state has seen a steady loss of residents over the past five years, losing an average of 100,000 people per year. Karp explains that, because New York is a large state, it may report greater movement than others, but notes that population size is not the only reason residents are fleeing.


"In order to move, you need to be able to sell your home," says Karp. "The housing market [in New York] has not gone through the meltdown that other states have gone through."

While New York homeowners may have a slightly easier time selling their homes and moving to greener pastures, a competing trend is the number of unemployed renters who can no longer afford the high cost of living in and around New York City. Karp says the expensive lifestyle and high taxes may force the long-term unemployed to move on to more affordable regions.

The Prairie State came in at No. 2. Illinois is expected to lose 27,000 people this year, consistent with its average annual loss over the last five years. The losses are likely linked to the state's economy and tax structure. Job losses in manufacturing and industrial machinery are likely pushing people out of the state, Karp says, adding that state taxes have also been "an issue" for many residents.

Midwestern states, in fact, are well-represented in the top-10 list. Nebraska (No. 4), Kansas (No. 5) and North Dakota (No. 9) are among the many central states projected to lose residents in 2010.

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Thursday, December 9, 2010

Tax Appeals Swamp U.S. Cities, Towns as Property Prices Plunge

Jeff Green and Tim Jones
Bloomberg

The backlog of cases from taxpayers seeking to lower property-tax bills of more than $100,000 shot up to 14,236this year from an annual average of about 6,000 during the past decade. The backlog of smaller claims was at28,558 at the end of September, eight times higher than a decade ago, according to records at the tribunal, a Lansing-based administrative court.

From Los Angeles to Atlantic City, the New Jersey gambling resort whose credit rating Moody’s Investors Service cut by three levels last month, property owners are demanding lower taxes after real-estate values plunged. The disputes over billions in dollars come as municipalities are already slashing services such as police and fire protection and may depress revenue further as communities try to recover from the longest recession since the 1930s. InMichigan, Governor-elect Rick Snyder has warned that hundreds of towns face financial crises.

“We’re just getting swamped,” said Halm, 54, who was appointed in 2003. “We’re constantly buying new file cabinets to hold all the cases. We even have six surplus file cabinets in the courtroom.”

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RELATED ARTICLE:
10 Signs the US is Becoming a Third World Country

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