bizjournals: Home sales rebound still on hold -- bizjournals.com

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Bankers are tightening mortgage loan standards and troubls has come to the subprimwmortgage market. Investors in local markets that overheated havepulled out. And builders hit by the slowdowm arecutting back. For most regions, those conditionsa have turnedthe sellers' market of a few yearw ago into a buyers' markeyt -- assuming the buyers can get a loan. "The housinhg correction is going to be saysCelia Chen, director of housing economiczs at Moody's Economy.com. "Mortgage lenders are becomingf muchmore circumspect. Lenders are not going to be handing out monetas readily.
" The National Association of Realtors reportsz that sales of existing single-family homesx fell 9.5 percent to a seasonally adjustedc annual rate of 5.32 million homesd in March from 5.88 million in The number of units sold was 11.9 percent lower than the 6.04 million-unitt level in March 2006. The median existinhg single-family home price was $215,300 in down 0.9 percent from a year Including condos and existing home salesplungec 11.3 percent in March to 6.12 millionb units from 6.9 million last year. The mediah price for all housing typeaswas $217,000, down 0.3 percent from last March, when the pricse was $217,600.
It was the biggest salesd drop in18 years, with every region of the country showinh declines in existing home sales. In the existing home sales fell 5.1 percent in Marchb from a year ago. The median pricre fell 0.7 percent to $268,000. The West saw a 16.7 percent drop in with median pricesfalling 2.9 percenft to $330,600. In the Midwest, sales fell 13.7 and median prices were $160,400 down 0.2 percent from Marc 2006. The South saw the only rise in median price, up 0.4 percent to $180,700, thoughg sales fell 6.2 percent. Existing home inventory at the end of Marcn stoodat 3.75 million homes, a 7.3-month supply at the currentr rate of sales. In a 6.8-month supply was on the market.
Davird Lereah, the National Realtors' Association's top economist, attributefd the slowdown to harsj winter weather in much ofthe country. But he said in a that troublee in the subprime lending market couldhit housing, and acknowledged that tighter lending standardws could be a drag on the marketf through much of the year. The Aprip 25 , an anecdotal account of economicf activity throughoutthe country, showed residential real estatw sales declining or flat in many districts. Severa districts also showed a slowdown inbuilding activity. Still, some pockets continue to show strength.
In , Crain's New York Busines s reports, sales remain Boston shows signs of according to the Beige Local markets in the Southeast such as Charlotte and Atlantaa arestill growing, though more slowly than duringv the boom. The big cities of Texas and the Northwes are in better shapee than most of the rest ofthe country, Chen The U.S. Commerce Department reported thatnew single-family homes sold at a slightlt higher rate in March than in Januar or February, but fell steeply from the previous The March new home sale pace was down 23 percent from last Faced with those kinds of numbers, overextendesd builders are pulling back in several "I think that builders got a little aheard of themselves," Chen said.
"I just don't thino they anticipated as much of a falloff as has The reportsthat high-end homebuildefr Toll Bros. has since last spring cut its land holding by 26 percentto 67,500 lots, and has taken hefty write-offs as a result. In its first the company took $105.9 million in land-relate d write-downs. Pulte, Beazer and Ryland reported quarterly lossesw at the endof April  on write-downs of the valuew of their land holdings, Bloomberg reports. Each said new home orderw had declined, and they had a combined $300 millioh in costs for land and options on land they nolonget needed. David Seiders, chief economisg for the , said tighteningv credit was taking atoll nationally.
"Builders are reportinv direct impacts on both sales and cancellations as prospective buyerse are unable to get mortgage credit or are unablse to sell their existing homes becausr ofcredit tightening," he said. During the boom, many buyers took loanx they couldn't afford -- many of them at adjustable ratees -- assuming the rising pricews of houseswould continue, allowing them to keep up with the But when prices throughout the country began levelinyg off in 2005, and banks started raisin rates and tightening lending requirements, thoss buyers were caught in a bind, in many casesd leading to foreclosures.
In just one mid-sized market, foreclosures are up in nearby markets and thecore RealtyTrac, a national foreclosure tracking shows 79 properties in pre-foreclosure, 193 at the auction stage and 577 bank-owned home s in the 38016 Cordova ZIP code, the the reports. Numbersd for the City of Memphis show 750 homeszin pre-foreclosure, 2,135 at auction and approximately 5,600 bank-ownec homes. "It's been building for a while, but late in 2006 with the beginninf of thesubprime fallout, it reallgy hit hard," Corky Neale, researcgh director of a Memphis nonprofig that tracks local foreclosures, told the Memphis Businessd Journal.
"We're finding that most of thesr foreclosures are coming on the heels of a particularly cash-out refinances when they have been in the home for less than threwe years. I would guess that 40% to 50% of the refinancess are in ARMs or were providecd based on stated income rather thanverifiable income."