David Bruce

Archive for October, 2010

October 4th, 2010

Economy: More Jobs Needed to Spur Home Sales

Good article by Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist for the National Association of REALTORS.  While the Richmond area continues to out perform the nation, our local real estate recovery will also hinge on jobs.

Businesses must ramp up hiring before the lag in home sales will subside!

By Lawrence Yun | October 2010

We’re in the midst of a post–tax credit pause in home sales, but the length and depth of the pause don’t depend heavily on consumer spending. This time, businesses are in the driver’s seat.

Consumers are largely tapped out. For the past 18 months or so, low interest rates and the home buyer tax credit drew consumers into the housing market, giving enough of a boost to the economy to help pull it out of the recent recession. Read the rest of this entry »

October 1st, 2010

What Will Become of Fannie, Freddie?

Housing industry experts from the business and academic worlds joined U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan in August for the Conference on the Future of Housing Finance in Washington, D.C. The discussion focused on what role, if any, the secondary mortgage market companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should have in the future. Most participants said the realistic course of action is to keep some type of government-backed entity behind the conventional mortgage market for 30-year fixed-rate and other plain vanilla loans. But the predominant view was that the backing should look more like catastrophic insurance, with the federal government acting as a backstop only after private insurers took the first hit. The FHA would be maintained in its role as lender of last resort for creditworthy moderate-income households who are having trouble getting conventional financing at an affordable rate. The federal government is under a congressional mandate to release initial recommendations for reforming Fannie and Freddie, which are under federal conservatorship, by January 2011.

Source: Realtor.com

Like what your reading? Subscribe to RichmondHomeShopper.com, the official blog of Skye Bruce Properties!