Archive for the 'Polls' Category
November 4th, 2009, 11:21 am by Jon Lansner
The Federal Reserve today said it’ll keep its interest rates at practically zero while noting it found a pulse in real estate …
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in September suggests that economic activity has continued to pick up. Conditions in financial markets were roughly unchanged, on balance, over the intermeeting period. Activity in the housing sector has increased over recent months. Household spending appears to be expanding but remains constrained by ongoing job losses, sluggish income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit. Businesses are still cutting back on fixed investment and staffing, though at a slower pace; they continue to make progress in bringing inventory stocks into better alignment with sales.
Although economic activity is likely to remain weak for a time, the Committee anticipates that policy actions to stabilize financial markets and institutions, fiscal and monetary stimulus, and market forces will support a strengthening of economic growth and a gradual return to higher levels of resource utilization in a context of price stability.
With substantial resource slack likely to continue to dampen cost pressures and with longer-term inflation expectations stable, the Committee expects that inflation will remain subdued for some time.
In these circumstances, the Federal Reserve will continue to employ a wide range of tools to promote economic recovery and to preserve price stability. The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period.
Worry brews in some circles that too much cheap money — the Fed last raised the key “Fed Funds” interest rate its control in June 2006 — heightens the risk of future asset bubbles and broader extreme inflation.
The Fed's 'cheap money' policies should ...
Lansner on Real Estate’s most-popular October postings …
- 16 OC hotels in deep financial distress
- Corona del Mar home on TV’s ‘Million Dollar’ show
- OC renters enjoy 3rd biggest US rent cuts
- Investor loses $50 million on Santa Ana office tower
- Hear why this guy saw home-price crash coming
- OC sent 60,000+ erroneous property tax bills
- $3 million price cut sells TV-featured OC mansion
- Top Calif. home price gains in 3 OC cities
- $38 million bay-view home is 2nd priciest OC listing
- Calif. house prices projected to jump 7.9%
- OC builder gets $206 million loan from Neverland savior
- UCLA sees 16% OC home-price gain in 2010
Posted in: Fed Follies • Polls • industry • interest rates | 38 Comments »
November 2nd, 2009, 12:18 pm by Jeff Collins
 Maguire Properties recently returned six Orange County properties to lenders and sold others as income fell below mortgage payments. Two recent news reports highlight growing concern about the impact mounting commercial real estate defaults will have on the recovery.
Bloomberg news reported today that the default rate for commercial mortgage-backed securities, or CMBS, hit 4.5% in the third quarter and is expected to exceed 6% by the end of the year.
And the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that 55% of commercial loans that are due to be paid off in the next five years are under water.
Citing a report by Foresight Analytics, the WSJ reported that about $770 billion of $1.4 trillion in commercial loans due by 2014 had debts exceeding current property values. The WSJ added:
“Regulators have been expressing increasing concern that problems in commercial real estate could unglue the nascent economic recovery by slamming financial institutions with billions of dollars in new losses.”
Bloomberg cited a report by the New York-based real estate research firm, Reis Inc., saying that the rate of defaults and late payments on CMBS surged more than fivefold in the third quarter and may worsen. Bloomberg added:
“The credit crisis and recession are reducing occupancies and rents for apartments, offices, shopping malls, warehouses and hotels, cutting the cash flow landlords need to repay debt.”
Who’s in trouble in O.C.: More than a dozen Orange County firms and homebuilders have defaulted on loans in the past year or may be at risk of default. For a list of notable cases, CLICK HERE!
Big real estate woes:
Posted in: Commercial property • Polls • Top tale • industry • troubled | 14 Comments »
October 29th, 2009, 9:39 am by Jon Lansner
It’s outlook season, where various economists, gurus, trade groups and computer models make their guestimates of what local home prices may do for next year. Here’s a sampling of what we’ve covered in recent weeks:
OK. Your time to guess …
2010 O.C. home pricing will be ...
Real estate news:
Posted in: Home prices • Polls • numbers | 47 Comments »
October 21st, 2009, 11:11 am by Jon Lansner
Register Washington bureau chief  Dena Bunis reports that O.C. Republican Rep. Ken Calvert is leading the charge to get the homebuyer tax break renewed.
Calvert teamed up with Rep. Joe Courtney, D- Conn., and got 163 of their colleagues to sign on to a letter urging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and GOP leader John Boehner to bring legislation to the floor to extend the first time home buyer tax credit. (Click here to read the letter and see who signed it.)
The $8,000 credit expires on Nov. 30. “Nothing will work in this economy if housing prices continue to fall,’’ said Calvert.
- Read more of Dena’s report HERE!
We wonder what you guys are thinking …
What should become of the $8,000 homebuyer incentive?
Did you see … $8,000 homebuyer tax credit on the ropes?
Real estate trends:
Posted in: Policy, politics & regulation • Polls • industry • tax credit | 60 Comments »
October 11th, 2009, 5:00 pm by Jon Lansner
Your blogger’s Big Orange Index — a compilation of 3 dozen or so local business barometers — has fallen again for the 11th quarter out of the past 12 (Full report HERE!)
Basically, it’s been 3 tough years here!
But amid the economic rubble, though, comes a curious trend: Real-estate related slices are doing the best of the Big O bunch:
- Big O Banker Index rose for the first time after 10 consecutive declines. Key reason: a slowdown in the number of new foreclosures.
- Real Estate index fell barely, its best performance in nearly 3 years. Helpers: Growing homebuying and mortgage making.
- The 4 other subindexes that comprise in overall Big O — Boss, Consumer, Merchant and Server — all declined.
- Note: This was 1st time all 6 Big O subindexes didn’t fall in unison since early 2008.
- Click on the graphic at right to get more Big Orange Index details!
So, are we seeing the whiff of a economic turn?
Could real estate lift O.C. out of its economic funk?
Posted in: Jon's work • Overall economics • Polls • Top tale • Big Orange Index • bottom • industry | 42 Comments »
October 1st, 2009, 10:00 am by Jon Lansner
New Cato Institute study suggest various real estate zoning regulations contributed to the housing bubble and its ensuing crash. Cato’s Randal O’Toole writes …
Between 2000 and the bubble’s peak, inflation-adjusted housing prices in California and Florida more than doubled, and since the peak they have fallen by 20 to 30 percent. In contrast, housing prices in Georgia and Texas grew by only about 20 to 25 percent, and they haven’t significantly declined.
In other words, California and Florida housing bubbled, but Georgia and Texas housing did not. This is hardly because people don’t want to live in Georgia and Texas: since 2000, Atlanta, Dallas–Ft. Worth, and Houston have been the nation’s fastest-growing urban areas, each growing by more than 120,000 people per year.
This suggests that local factors, not national policies, were a necessary condition for the housing bubbles where they took place. The most important factor that distinguishes states like California and Florida from states like Georgia and Texas is the amount of regulation imposed on landowners and developers, and in particular a regulatory system known as growth management.
In short, restrictive growth management was a necessary condition for the housing bubble. States that use some form of growth management should repeal laws that mandate or allow such planning, and other states and urban areas should avoid passing such laws or implementing such plans; otherwise, the next housing bubble could be even more devastating than this one.
Zoning as bubble culprit?
Posted in: Policy, politics & regulation • Polls • Top tale • Cato Institute • zoning | 51 Comments »
|
|
