* A third of home loans under water
marketwatch.com
* Hang up on cold callers
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* Walk away from the house?
marketwatch.com
Twenty months into the recession and the housing market is still a mess.
Foreclosures rose 7% in July compared with the previous month, and they were up
32% compared with a year ago. Not surprisingly, given the foreclosure figures,
home prices continued to fall. Meanwhile, almost one-third of home loans are
under water -- meaning the borrower owes more than the house is worth.
All the bad news makes it all the more appealing to grab at those oh-so-small
tidbits of good news. Here's one: The National Association of Realtors reported
earlier this week that home sales were up, ever so slightly, in the second
quarter compared with the first quarter. (Still, over the year, sales are
down!)
Here's another sliver of sunshine. While almost one-third of home loans were
under water in the second quarter, that number had dropped slightly from the
first quarter -- and that could portend a slowing in the foreclosure rate.
Maybe there's evidence of a turnaround here. Maybe not. All I know is I'm
beginning to viscerally understand the cliché "grasping at straws."
-- Andrea Coombes, assistant Personal Finance editor
REAL ESTATE
ALMOST ONE-THIRD OF HOME LOANS UNDER WATER
A slowing in the pace of home-price declines helped bring down the portion of
home-loans with negative equity -- the situation where borrowers owe more on
their mortgage than their home is worth -- according to data from First
American CoreLogic.See full story.
marketwatch.com
MODIFY THE MORTGAGE OR WALK AWAY?
Question: I am an older woman in her 50s making about $65,000 a year. In 2005,
I paid $350,000 for a house that is now involved in a construction-defect
lawsuit with the builder.See Realty Q&A.
marketwatch.com
PRICE REDUCTIONS HIT U.S. REAL-ESTATE MARKET
Peter Flint, chief executive of online real-estate service Trulia, tells
MarketWatch's Stacey Delo about home-price reductions around the nation in July
and what parts of the country are seeing the biggest changes.Watch Video
Report.(http://www.marketwatch.com/video/asset/vsf081409trulia/A59AF0F6-3859-4EF5-82F6-02F51E67589F?siteid=nwtpf) |
