Maine Real Estate Info

Daily Real Estate News  |  November 29, 2007Year-Over-Year Foreclosure Filings Double
U.S. foreclosure filings were up 94 percent in October compared with the same month the previous year, according to RealtyTrac, which tracks and sells foreclosures.

The U.S. had one foreclosure filing for every 555 households in October, RealtyTrac said.

Foreclosure filings were up in 45 states, year over year, but the filings have declined slightly since they hit a high in August.

The states with the highest foreclosure filing rates in the country last month were in order from the highest: Nevada, California, Florida, Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, Colorado, Arizona, Indiana and Illinois.

Source: The Associated Press, Alex Veiga (11/29/2007)

In a press release to the media today, MREIS reports a 1.95% decrease in median sales prices and 12.23% decrease in unit sales for homes statewide in Maine comparing October 2007 to October 2006.  The median sales price was $188,500 in October, down from $192,250 one year ago.  Median sales price indicates half of the homes were sold for more and half sold for less.  NAR reports national sales of single-family existing homes dropped 20.8% in October.  The national median existing single-family home price decreased 6.3% in one year to $205,700.  In the regional Northeast, sales were down 12.6 percent; and the regional median sales price rose 1.3% in October to $258,700.

In Androscoggin County where unit sales are down 22.56% in 2007 verses same time period in 2006, however, the median sales price is up 1.66% during the same time frame.

Daily Real Estate News  |  November 27, 2007Commercial Real Estate Still Profitable Investment
So far, the softening in the real estate market hasn’t been felt in commercial property. There appears to be only a slight decline in 2007 vs. 2006.

Apartments have benefited from the still-high home prices and tightened mortgage-lending standards, although the increases have slackened slightly from 5 percent to 4 percent. Office properties are up 1 percentage point to 10 percent. Shopping centers are down 0.5 percent. Warehouses are up 4 percent and still in demand.

Over the past 12 months commercial real estate has returned an average 13 percent (property appreciation plus rental income), says commercial brokerage house Marcus & Millichap. That tops the 8.4 percent total return from the S&P 500 and the approximately 3 percent return from single-family homes.

Forbes magazine suggests that anyone interested in becoming a commercial landlord should ask the following questions before deciding how to go about it:

• Do you want to invest on your own or in a group?

• How much work do you want to put into your property?

• Is a 1031 exchange worthwhile, or will fees eat up the delayed tax benefits?

• Would you make more money buying a publicly traded REIT?

Source: Forbes, Dorothy Pomerantz (12/10/07)

Letter Sent to Troubled Borrowers: Help Is On the Way
The Hope Now alliance, a partnership between mortgage companies and nonprofit housing counselors, began a nationwide mail campaign last week to offer help to home owners who are having trouble meeting their mortgage payments.

The effort is being backed by the Bush administration. Treasury Undersecretary Robert Steel says the initial mailing would be followed by more outreach efforts in the months ahead.

Critics are calling this effort “too little too late” and are urging the administration to endorse a proposal made by Sheila Bair, chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Bair has said that mortgage companies should consider making broad-based conversions of adjustable-rate mortgages to fixed-rate loans if the borrowers are current on their payments.

Source: Dow Jones International News (11/19/07)

What Buyers Do First One-third of home buyers go online first to look for properties, according to National Association of Realtor’s 2007 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. One-fifth of all buyers contact a real estate agent first. At least half of all home buyers reported using a combination of sources to gather information about their upcoming home purchase – real estate professionals, the Internet, yard signs and print newspaper advertisements. In Other News…In this weeks meeting, the Maine Real Estate Guru’s have announced that MREIS will be allowing the property addresses to be displayed with all listings to accommodate online mapping features. This is only if the sellers wish to have their address made public.Also MREIS, Maine Real Estate Information Services, is making plans to have a public IDX(MLS) search web site. Details have not been set. Stay tuned for more information on Maine Real Estate news.

YES!!!  However many would-be buyers are scared off and the media is fueling that fear. Talk of foreclosures, short sales, subprime loans this and Mortgage that, and blah, blah, blah…It’s no wonder consumers are shaking in their boots. Maine has held her own compared to most other states in that we have not seen the prices drop so severly. That’s great news for Maine property owners. Let’s look at Maine Real Estate investment indicators:

1. Mortgage rates are still at an all time low
2. Prices are down
3. Inventory is UP
4. The economy is still growing; although not a fast as some would like
5. Sellers are offering incentives, in some cases
6. Maine is known as VACATIONLAND

Everybody loves to vacation and Maine is a desireable location to put up one’s feet. So if your still thinking of investing, think of Maine as a place to invest in real estate. There is a pay-off…and it’s not just emotional!

Copywite: Michael Meservier - Meservier & Associates

Five Solutions for a Troubled Housing Market
How do you fix a troubled housing market? Forbes.com asked that question of a broad range of housing experts, including CEOs of real estate firms, real estate practitioners, economists from lending institutions, and research directors at analytics firms. Here are five of their best suggestions.

1. Restore investor faith. “Mortgage fraud, by both borrowers and insiders, must be identified and prosecuted in order for faith to be restored in the market,” says Anthony Sanders, professor of real estate finance at Arizona State University.

2. Expand Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration loans. “Our local banks and community banks have done a great job providing funding. (FHA) should be there as a supplemental for people who have good credit,” says Congressman Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.)

3. Cut construction and prices. “The market will only hit bottom after builders cut construction and sellers slash prices,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “The longer builders and sellers hold on, the longer the market will struggle.”

4. Bring back non-agency loans. “The dramatic seizing of the mortgage-credit markets caused the elimination of almost any loan that wasn’t backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac,” says Bob Walters, chief economist at Quicken Loans. The revival of non-agency loans “will add much-needed mortgage funding to potential home buyers and folks looking to refinance.”

5. Buyers and sellers get real. Nelson Gonzalez, senior vice president of Esslinger, Wooten Maxwell, REALTORS® , believes that once buyers realize that they’re not going to convince a seller to accept a rock-bottom price, fluidity and activity can return to the market. “There is much pent-up demand,” he says, “and buyers have been sitting on their hands for some time now.”

Source: Forbes, Matt Woolsey (11/07/07)

A New England state has ranked No.1. That of course is Vermont according to a fifty state survey released on Nov. 5th, 2007.

“We are displeased and unhappy to have to report that this year the health of the nation is less good than it was last year. In fact, the health of the nation has slipped by about three tenths of a percent,” says Reed Tuckson, MD, senior vice president of the United Health Foundation, which has issued the survey for the last 18 years.

The survey uses a combined score of health indicators and policy questions to rank all 50 states. Obesity rates, tobacco and alcohol use, and high school graduation rates are accounted for, as are state laws and regulations promoting better health. The survey measures access to health services and also environmental issues like pollution, infectious disease rates, and crime.

Maine ranks 7^th as the healthiest state in nation
Maine moved up from ninth to seventh place in an annual ranking of the healthiest states released Monday by the United Health Foundation.

Maine rose in the rankings partly because the percentage of Mainers without insurance dropped 10% over the last year to 9.3%, and the percentage of smokers in the state fell from 30.3% in 1990 to 20.9% this year, according to the Associated Press.

The report said Maine’s health challenges include a high rate of cancer deaths and a low rate of immunization coverage, the AP said.

How the States RankedHere’s how the states ranked in the America’s health rankings report: