Archive for the ‘Seattle Mortgage Companies’ Category

Seattle Lagging Economy and Everett Real Estate

Monday, January 18th, 2010

Will Everett Real Estate Experience the Same Lagging Economic Effect?

In Snohomish county and real estate in Everett only one home in 53 has received a notice of default. Seattle is doing much better at 1 in 80. The national average is 1 in 45. The usual rate for real estate in Everett is 1 to 1.5 in every 100 homes.

Everyone who pays any attention knows that the Seattle Metropolitan Area has a lagging economy. Our economy lags by 4-8 months versus the rest of the nation. What does that portend for the next year or so?

God I hate to have nothing but bad news to talk about

Foreclosures or “Notice of Defaults” have increased, as Seattle mortgage companies well know, by about 60% in 2009 over 2008. But the Seattle and Everett real estate markets still haven’t seen the worst of it yet. So while we haven’t completely caught up we seem to be working at it. My guess is that the value of homes for sale in Everett will face downward pressure for the next 12 to 18 months.

Because foreclosed homes are almost always sold at a discount, sometimes a huge discount, they will continue to exert a downward pressure on prices. I have addressed how we could mitigate that pressure by changing the way appraisals are done, see my blog post, that isn’t going to help until enacted.

The foreclosure pressure is not letting up soon. We can expect from 3,000,000 to 3,500,000 homes enter foreclosure in 2010. Do you want to ask my why? I can say in with 3 words, JOBS, JOBS, and more JOBS”. And it not just the loss of jobs but the loss of high paying jobs. When you go from $75,000 per year to $55,000 it hurts your ability to pay mortgage loans. What tells us that is the fastest growing sector of foreclosures is the 30 year fixed rate mortgage. The very one that used to be the bed rock of real estate in Everett and the rest of the nation.

I may be getting strident here. But I want you to know if you don’t do something about this our nation may be damaged for an entire generation.

Now so you realize that I am not calling the sky is falling. Here is a bit of good news 3 States have foreclosure rates of more than 10% and they are Nevada, Arizona and Florida. In Washington, Clark and Pierce were the only counties in which more than 2 percent of homes were sent a notice of default last year.

We desperately need quality leadership at the state and federal level. I believe that we need leaders who have experience in business. I want to see Everett real estate recover its value.

Jim Johnson and comments are always welcome.

Posted in Everett real estate, Homes for Sale Everett, Real Estate Everett, Seattle Mortgage Companies | No Comments »

Everett Mortgage Now is Time to Refinance Everett

Saturday, January 16th, 2010

Interest rates will NEVER get lower than they are now

Bad Economic News But There Some Hope for 2011

If you were ever going to consider refinancing Everett you might consider now the time to do it. Now is the time to buy if you can. Homes for sale Everett will never be cheaper because interest rates will never get lower. By the end of 2010 interest rates are expected to be around 6.25% to 6.5% for a fixed 30 year home loan.

I am not drinking the Obama Kool-Aid. Every time I hear the MSM (main stream media) saying we are coming out of this recession I want to puke. I see 10.1% unemployment. But the real unemployment numbers are closer to 22%. I see a very telling statistic in the unemployment numbers. A way to gauge the level of a recovery is how long workers have been unemployed. 27 weeks unemployment is the measuring point. Well the percentage of workers unemployed longer than 27 weeks is about 40%. That means we are developing a chronic long term unemployment problem. This is the same problem the Europeans have. In fact the Mortgage Bankers Association predicts 10.1% for 2010, 9.4% for 2011 and 8.3% for 2012. But these numbers are very deceiving. They don’t count people who have run out of benefits. They don’t count people who are under employed. They are deliberately misreported by the government to make the numbers look better. Now by European standards this level of unemployment is not bad. By American standards this is unacceptable. If you are considering refinancing Everett it is hard to do if you don’t have a job. When you have homes for sale Everett nobody can buy Everett real estate without a job.

If you are in the business of refinancing Everett the next 2-3 years look very bad. Again according to the Mortgage Bankers Association the dollar volume of homes for sale Everett will improve slightly in 2010. But they predict that the volume of homes that refinance Everett will fall by 65%. That makes 2010 a train wreck for mortgage brokers Seattle or anyone else who originates home loan refinancing.

There is a bit of a silver lining in this dark cloud. The numbers on foreclosures are terrible in California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida. When they are taken away it doesn’t look quite so bad for the rest of us. Now if Mr. Obama begins to see that destroying the economy is not in his best interest maybe we will survive this. So your efforts to refinance Everett may not be in vain.

Jim Johnson and comments are always welcome

Posted in Homes for Sale Everett, Refinance Everett, Seattle Mortgage Companies | 4 Comments »