Tampa Bay Realtor Explains Four Basic Groups That Help Housing Market Run
According to a Tampa Bay realtor, there are several small signs rising through the fog of recession that the housing market is starting to stabilize, even in places like coastal Florida, Washington, DC and Las Vegas. Since 2004, sales of existing homes have risen for three straight months, as reported in August and at the same time the inventory of unsold homes has decreased slightly.
There are four distinct groups that make the housing market run: buyers and sellers, homebuilders and mortgage lenders.
Buyers – countless buyers are taking advantage of foreclosed property or people selling their property as a short sale in order to avoid foreclosure. Foreclosed property and short sale property is usually sold at less than market value making the property very attractive to multiple buyers.
Sellers – prices have tumbled approximately 20 percent in the Washington, DC area after a seven-year stretch where home prices more than tripled. The inventory of unsold houses dropped to five months and this relatively tight supply is creating the kind of bidding wars that were seen at the height of the housing bubble. Prices have stabilized and multiple offers are back on the table; however this is a long way from a full-blown recovery since the supply of unsold homes is being restricted by thousands of foreclosed properties being held onto by the banks.
Homebuilders – Tampa, Florida homes for sale, as well as those across the country, have experienced an increase in construction spending for single-family homes this past June, according to the US Census Bureau, which is the first construction spending spree since February 2006.
Mortgage lenders – many lenders have been criticized during this housing crisis for this economic downturn for selling tricked out mortgages to millions of borrowers with little due diligence and now they are being vilified for refusing to modify the loans with new terms homeowners can afford to pay. One of the success stories in the lending field has the financial institution visiting the applicant before a decision is made on their home loan and painstakingly going over a line by line budget to see what they can actually afford. This ‘old-school’ way of making loans makes sure that the loans they make are ones people can repay.