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28 December 2010

Real Estate 2010: The Year of Intervention

This past year has been very challenging for real estate. The market was defined by outside intervention. This intervention tugged at historic trends. Government involvment caused market fundamentals to be distorted beyond recognition. Unpredictability was the only thing we could predict.

Modifications

The administration’s announced goal of the modification program was to save 3-4 million families from losing their homes. The actual number of homeowners assisted will come in at less than one million. Most consider the program a failure.

However, we believe that there was a secondary unannounced goal of the modification program: to slow the flow of foreclosed homes to the market. Putting homes through the modification process prevented banks from moving forward with the repossession process as quickly as they normally would.

Limiting supply was one of the ways the administration used to help stabilize home prices. However, the administration has recently slowed the modification process (see graph below from the latest Economic Letter from the Dallas Fed). Going into 2011, a larger number of foreclosed properties will enter the market. read more....

Real Estate 2010: The Year of Intervention

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