Category: Retirement Real Estate
May 20 -- The National Association of Realtors announced that home prices slid over 7% in the first quarter of 2008 compared to the year earlier period. Although sales volume is down as most buyers continue to stay on the sidelines, there is one category of sale that is hot right now - foreclosures.
In Southern California almost 38 percent of overall sales in April were from foreclosures. These increased sales will probably benefit the overall real estate market, including homes in active adult communities. The sales gains are clearly coming from lower prices - as banks take action to get non-performing assets off their books, prices go down. In fact there are reports that certain funds are taking big positions in buying foreclosed properties, often for cents on the dollar.
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Published on May 20, 2008
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
New home sales fell 8.5% in March, according to the Commerce Department. The vacancy rate for homes is at 2.9%, the highest level recorded since the Census Bureau started keeping track in 1956. Over 18 million U.S. homes were empty in this year's first quarter. Sound like bad news?
Not everybody thinks so. There are those who believe that the bottom of the real estate market is either here, or will be here soon. The optimists, on whose side Topretirements rests, believe that the mismatch between inventories (still way too high), demand (pathetic), and prices (still too high in spite of very big reductions in some markets) will eventually be resolved and the real estate market will return to equilibrium.
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Published on April 29, 2008
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
March 28 -- January housing statistics from Case-Shiller were released this week - and the news continues bad for sellers, good for buyers. Of the 20 metro markets that this firm tracks, only 1 metro managed higher real estate prices vs. the year ago period, Charlotte (+1.75%). The 19 others had declining prices, with 10 of them experiencing double digit declines. Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Diego had the biggest drops (Las Vegas went down over 19%). Overall the 20 city index showed a 10.7% decline in January 2008 vs. Jan. 2007.
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Published on March 28, 2008
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
February 17 - Sales of existing homes in the 4th quarter of 2007 continued the slide seen earlier in the year. According to the National Association of Realtors sales fell in 45 states; down 21% on a national basis vs. the year ago quarter. The median price declined a record 5.8% in the quarter. Prices increased in about half of the markets surveyed.
Hardest hit were Las Vegas, Jackson (MS), Sacramento, and the Riverside and Orange County areas of southern California. Foreclosures are often cited as the major cause of the declines. But all the news wasn't bad, showing that real estate is nothing if not local. Bucking the trend
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Published on February 17, 2008
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
The real estate market in South Florida, one of the hardest hit regions of the country, affects thousands and thousands or baby boomers who are considering retirement communities there. Your Topretirements editor has been in the Sunshine State for the past several weeks - this report summarizes his microcosmic view of the Florida real estate market.
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Published on January 22, 2008
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
January 2 - The new year might have just rung in, but the news for buyers of retirement real estate is the same - buyers are cautious as inventory piles up, sales slow down drastically, and prices come down only slightly. A dire New Year's Day front page headline in the Miami Herald screamed about "Home Sales and Prices" being in a "Nosedive". But aside from the softness in the market for retirement communities, another worry has emerged - unfullfilled promises and communities.
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Published on January 1, 2008
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
November 12 -- One of America's household names in construction, Levitt Corp, announced last week that its Levitt & Sons LLC division has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The division built retirement communities for baby boomers. In making its move the company cited cited "unprecedented conditions in the home-building industry" that were "particularly sudden and steep" in Florida and the Southeast.
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Published on November 12, 2007
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
November 5 — Here at Topretirements.com we spend a lot of time writing about why college towns make such great retirement communities. Now there’s yet another reason to choose a college town to retire in – they are much less likely to be involved in the sub-prime mortgage mess that…
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Published on November 5, 2007
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
The Baer House Inn in Vicksburg MS
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Published on October 28, 2007
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
October 8 -- Competition for the dollars of the newly retired is heating up, and it seems like Florida could be the state that takes the biggest hit. The Sunshine State, always popular for its retirement communities, has seen a number of negative factors that are increasingly deflecting retirees to other states in the Sunbelt.Retirement in Luxurious Fort Lauderdale
Some of the Florida downsides include overcrowding and traffic, increasing real estate costs (64% higher than just 5 years ago), a spate of devastating hurricanes, and ever-increasing insurance costs related to those hurricanes. The current housing bust is about as bad in Florida as anywhere.
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Published on October 8, 2007
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