Most people (including politicians) agree that they hold the key to economic recovery despite the ongoing accidents occurring in Washington and the country. However, in order to know how best to improve the housing market, it is necessary to accurately evaluate where you are. This is the need for accurate information motivated to launch a new program to provide the Obama administration with a monthly snapshot of the housing industry. It is called Housing Scorecard and is generally released on the first week of each month.
The Obama administration and the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) announced a home scores table in September, which includes good news.
Home prices rose slowly with all three indicators Case Shiller, FHFA and CoreLogic, indicating that the homeowners recovered at least a little of the capital they lost at the collapse of the housing bubble. The value of home still remains at the level of 2003, but the gradual improvement recorded in recent months shows that there is a possibility of practical improvement.
Although new home sales were sluggish, sales of existing houses increased significantly from 389,000 to 419,000. The number of initial home purchasers has increased by approximately 20,000. The increase in home sales could be an indicator that people are not bothered by purchasing a house or whether the bank will lend more. Both reasons are positive changes that are expected to lead to an ongoing increase in sales and a continuous rise in household value.
In other good news, the existing housing supply declined from 9.5 to 8.5 months and the 30-year fixed interest mortgage rate fell from 4.09 to 4.01%. The planned housing market continues to be one of the main factors of low home value. There are so many houses in the market that the seller needs to defeat each other to withdraw potential buyers. Declining existing supply should help homeowners recover some of the capital.
According to the September score card, tens of thousands of home owners have been receiving help through loan change and mortgage counseling, so the foreclosure has continuously decreased.
Although this does not mean any significant improvement, most of the scorecard indicators in September point out that although the housing market recovery is slow, it is stable. The officials are cautiously optimistic that a positive trend will continue over the coming months.
