Maine Real Estate Information blog

A great article came out in our local newspaper regarding the housing market in Maine. Here things are a little bit different. Home prices in Maine have actually risen. The article talks about a trend tahat highlights a disconnect in Maine: Over the past year, the number of homes sold has declined by double digits nearly every month. Despite that, median prices continued to edge up, or remain flat.

In November, home sales statewide were off more than 10 percent compared with a year earlier, but the median price – the point at which half the homes sold for more and half for less – rose more than 1 percent, to $188,000.

You can read the whole story here at The Maine Today site: http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=163046&ac=PHnws&pg=1

Daily Real Estate News  |  December 5, 2007

Foreclosure Plan Will Be Greeted With Questions
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will unveil a plan on Thursday to forestall foreclosures and ease the housing recession.

The release of plan’s details will coincide with the release of data from the Mortgage Bankers Association that show that homes in foreclosure hit record levels in April through June, and that nearly 17 percent of subprime borrowers missed at least one payment in the first quarter of the year. An additional 2 million home owners will face their first interest-rate reset by the end of 2008.

“This is the most serious housing recession since the Great Depression,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Economy.com. Zandi predicts that home prices, on average, will fall 7 percent more through next year.

Paulson says he wants state and local governments to be allowed to issue tax-exempt bonds to “temporarily” raise money to help some struggling subprime borrowers refinance.

Questions remain about how many investors, who bought bonds backed by these mortgages and are spread out around the globe, will agree to change the terms of the loans.

Source: USA Today, Noelle Knox (12/4/2007)

Daily Real Estate News  |  December 5, 2007

Bill Would Help Home Owners at Brink of Foreclosure
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is pushing for a bill that would allow bankruptcy judges to change the terms of a mortgage on the primary residence of owners at risk of foreclosure or bankruptcy.

Judges would be able to lower an adjustable interest rate to a lower, fixed rate. They already have the power to do this for car loans and a number of other debts.

Durbin says his bill could help an estimated 600,000 families at risk of losing their homes because of rising adjustable mortgage rates.

“A strategic change in the bankruptcy code will provide home owners facing foreclosure a degree of financial stability – even when the market cannot,” Durbin said.

Supporters of Durbin’s bill include senior citizens, bankruptcy attorneys, the AFL-CIO, and the NAACP. The American Bankers Association and home builders are among opponents.

Floyd Stoner, a leading lobbyist for bankers, says bankruptcy judges lack expertise to predetermine a loan’s size, value, and length.

Source: The Associated Press, Dennis Conrad (12/05/2007)

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.

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.

OPEN HOUSE SEARCH:  The new MREIS website will have an Open House Search function for the Public or Realtors to find upcoming open houses.  You can search an on or before date, property type, town or county, bedrooms, baths, price or MLS#.  All open houses will display with appropriate information and give you a link to the Public display of detail information on the property including listing agent, listing office and contact information.