Most Dallas County home values to decrease, stay same
07:32 AM CDT on Friday, April 23, 2010
By KEVIN KRAUSE / The Dallas Morning News
kkrause@dallasnews.com
For the second year in a row, most Dallas County residents will either see no change or a decrease in their home values.
When appraisal notices are mailed in about two weeks, only 20 percent of the roughly 360,000 residential properties reappraised this year will increase in value, according to the Dallas Central Appraisal District.
Sixty percent will lose value, while 20 percent will see no change. The roughly 280,000 residential properties that were not reappraised this year also will not change.
Last year, 55 percent of residential properties that were reappraised decreased in value.
"The market is not as bad as last year. But we're still seeing the lingering effects of foreclosures," said Cheryl Jordan, spokeswoman for the appraisal district.
While this is good news for most homeowners because it could mean lower tax bills, it's putting pressure on the budgets of local governments that rely on property tax revenue. Dallas County is expecting a $56 million shortfall, while the city of Dallas is anticipating nearly twice that.
Dallas County officials have planned for an overall drop in property values this year of 8 percent to 9 percent when the tax roll is certified in July. Last year, property values fell by a little more than 3 percent – the largest drop since 1992.
If the county is unable to close the budget gap, commissioners might consider a tax rate increase. That would mean higher property taxes for some homeowners even if their values don't change this year.
Jordan said state law requires the district to reappraise all properties in the county at least once every three years.
The appraisal district, she said, relies on an annual study of sales figures by the University of Texas at Dallas to target certain areas of the county where values appear to be too high or low.
Appraisal notices are being sent only to homes that were reappraised this year, regardless of whether there was a value change, she said.
Foreclosures' effect
In his presentation to Dallas County commissioners Tuesday, Chief Appraiser Ken Nolan said the southern part of the county still hasn't recovered from the wave of home foreclosures that hit last year.
Nolan also said affluent communities like Highland Park and University Park are now starting to see foreclosures for the first time, which he predicted will continue through 2011. Home values in those areas are expected to drop for the first time in 20 years, he told commissioners.
The Park Cities are littered with for-sale signs and vacant lots where houses were torn down to make way for mansions that were never built, he said. Those teardowns, which were rampant a few years ago, have come to a halt, Nolan said.
Holland Brown, a tax consultant with North Texas Property Tax Services in Dallas, said affluent homes didn't see many value reductions last year because there weren't as many sales; homes sat on the market longer.
Since the appraisal district relies on sales to set values, the true value of the homes is only now becoming known, as more sales occur, Brown said.
Chris Bawcom, another partner in the firm, said the majority of the 60 percent of homes that will decrease in value this year most likely hadn't been reappraised in a while. He said he thinks that as market conditions improve, most homes next year will see no value change.
"I think it will start to flatten out after this year," Bawcom said. "We won't see as many decreases."
Coppell, an affluent suburb in the northwest part of the county, is generally the only place where new homes are being built, Nolan told commissioners this week. He said residents there should expect value increases this year.
But overall, home building in the county has slowed substantially. Residential building permits are down 46 percent this year, Nolan said.
Relief to some
For homeowners who have endured years of value increases, the news of falling appraisals again this year is a relief. In 2008, preliminary values rose about 13 percent. In 2007, the increase was 20 percent.
But for property owners trying to sell their property, the static or falling values aren't good news.
The decreased values don't mean there will be fewer protests this year. Many people are expected to protest, arguing their home value should have decreased or didn't decrease enough.
"We decreased a lot of values last year. But people still came in and said it's not enough," Jordan said.
The ability of homeowners to protest online for the first time this year is expected to drive that increase in value challenges, officials said.
While the worst may be over soon for the residential market, damage to commercial properties has yet to be seen, officials said.
Nolan told commissioners that commercial property values will decrease between 5 percent and 15 percent. He said he won't know for sure until owners present evidence during the summer protest season.
And the market could worsen if the expected wave of commercial foreclosures materializes, Nolan said.
BY THE NUMBERS: REAPPRAISALS
The Dallas Central Appraisal District is required to reappraise properties at least once every three years. Of the residential properties looked at this year, most will decrease in value or see no change, similar to last year.
RESIDENTIAL
Total accounts: 640,000
Reappraisal notices to be mailed this year: 360,000
Value decrease: 60 percent
No change: 20 percent
Value increase: 20 percent
COMMERCIAL
Total accounts: 73,000
Reappraisal notices to be mailed this year: 42,000
Value decrease: 10 percent
No change: 80 percent
Value increase: 10 percent
NOTE: Numbers are approximate.
SOURCE: Dallas Central Appraisal District
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/yahoolatestnews/stories/042310dnmetdcad.41986f2.html
Friday, April 23, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Fannie Mae says unsold homes are slowing recovery
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
ECONOMY
Fannie: Excess homes weighing on recovery
Fannie Mae's economic and mortgage market analysis group said Monday that the housing market is stabilizing but that excess inventory continues to hinder a recovery.
The D.C.-based mortgage giant released a report that projects economic growth of 3.1 percent for 2010. Doug Duncan, Fannie's chief economist, said the unwinding of programs such as mortgage-backed securities are evidence of viability for the industry without federal aid.
New-home sales are at record lows and will remain slow, Fannie said, but it pointed to signs of recovery in existing-home sales.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/19/AR2010041905368.html?wprss=rss_business
ECONOMY
Fannie: Excess homes weighing on recovery
Fannie Mae's economic and mortgage market analysis group said Monday that the housing market is stabilizing but that excess inventory continues to hinder a recovery.
The D.C.-based mortgage giant released a report that projects economic growth of 3.1 percent for 2010. Doug Duncan, Fannie's chief economist, said the unwinding of programs such as mortgage-backed securities are evidence of viability for the industry without federal aid.
New-home sales are at record lows and will remain slow, Fannie said, but it pointed to signs of recovery in existing-home sales.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/19/AR2010041905368.html?wprss=rss_business
Why Texas is doing so much better economically than the rest of the nation.
Once a separate nation, Texas has recently been behaving more like an independent economic republic than a regular state. While it hasn't been immune to the problems plaguing the nation, the Texas housing market, employment rate, and overall economic growth are relatively strong. Chalk some of this up to accidents of geology and geography. But Texan prosperity also reflects the conscious efforts of a once-parochial place to embrace globalization.
On several measures of economic stress, Texas is doing quite well. The state unemployment rate is 8.2 percent—high, but still one many states would envy. (California's is 12.5 percent; Michigan's is 14.1 percent.) It entered recession later than the rest of the country—Texas was adding jobs through August 2008—and started slowly adding jobs again last fall, thanks mostly to its great position in the largely recession-proof energy industry.
The Texas housing market also has fared better than many. The mortgage delinquency rate (the portion of borrowers three months behind on payments) is 5.78 percent, compared with 8.78 nationwide, according to First American CoreLogic. That's partly because relaxed zoning codes and abundant land kept both price appreciation and speculation down. "House prices didn't experience a bubble in the same way as the rest of the nation," said Anil Kumar, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. But it's also because of two attributes not commonly associated with the Longhorn State: financial restraint and comparatively strong regulation. Unlike many of its neighbors, Texas has state laws that prohibited consumers from using home-equity lines of credit to increase borrowing to more than 80 percent of the value of their homes. The upshot: Dallas housing prices have fallen only 7 percent from their 2007 peak, according to the Case-Shiller index.
As it has for decades, energy is driving Texas' economy. But it's not because the state's wells are gushing crude. In November 2009, Texas wells produced 1.08 million barrels per day, about half as much as they did in the late 1980s. In recent years, natural gas has been undergoing a renaissance. The state's production rose about 35 percent between 2004 and 2008. And Texas has received a big boost from a different, renewable source of energy: wind.
In this area, Texas' size and history of independence has enabled it to jump-start a new industry. The state has its own electricity grid, which is not connected to neighboring states. That has allowed it to move swiftly and decisively in deregulating power markets, building new transmission lines, and pursuing alternative sources. "We can build transmission lines without federal jurisdiction and without consulting other states," said Paul Sadler, executive director of the Austin-based Wind Coalition. Ramping up wind power nationally would require connecting energy fields—the windswept, sparsely populated plains—to population centers on the coasts and in the Midwest. Texas' grid already connects the plains of West Texas with consumers in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. Texas recently surpassed 10,000 megawatts of capacity, the most by far of any state and enough to power 3 million homes, Sadler says. Wind energy is also powering employment—creating more than 10,000 jobs so far. And it and has attracted foreign companies, including Danish turbine maker Vestas, Spanish renewable-energy giant Iberdrola, and Shell.
Texas today is more suburban engineer than urban cowboy, more Michael Dell than J.R. Ewing. Austin, home to the University of Texas, the state government, and Dell Computer, has a 7 percent unemployment rate. Yes, ExxonMobil is based in Irving.* But the state's energy complex is increasingly focused more on services and technology than on intuition and wildcatting. And it is selling those services into the global oil patch. Russian, Persian Gulf, and African oil developers now come to Houston for equipment, engineering, and software.
While its political leaders may occasionally flirt with secession, Texas thrives on connection. It surpassed California several years ago as the nation's largest exporting state. Manufactured goods like electronics, chemicals, and machinery account for a bigger chunk of Texas' exports than petroleum does. In the first two months of 2010, exports of stuff made in Texas rose 24.3 percent, to $29 billion, from 2009. That's about 10 percent of the nation's total exports. There are more than 700,000 Texan jobs geared to manufacturing goods for export, according to Patrick Jankowski, vice president of research at the Greater Houston Partnership. "A lot of it is capital goods that the Asian, Latin American, and African [countries] are using to build their economies."
Thanks to that embrace of globalization, the Texas turnaround may help lead the nation in its economic turnaround. Texans have always had the ability to think big. Now that their state has become a player in the global economy, we can expect a new kind of swagger
http://www.slate.com/id/2250999/?yahoo=y
On several measures of economic stress, Texas is doing quite well. The state unemployment rate is 8.2 percent—high, but still one many states would envy. (California's is 12.5 percent; Michigan's is 14.1 percent.) It entered recession later than the rest of the country—Texas was adding jobs through August 2008—and started slowly adding jobs again last fall, thanks mostly to its great position in the largely recession-proof energy industry.
The Texas housing market also has fared better than many. The mortgage delinquency rate (the portion of borrowers three months behind on payments) is 5.78 percent, compared with 8.78 nationwide, according to First American CoreLogic. That's partly because relaxed zoning codes and abundant land kept both price appreciation and speculation down. "House prices didn't experience a bubble in the same way as the rest of the nation," said Anil Kumar, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. But it's also because of two attributes not commonly associated with the Longhorn State: financial restraint and comparatively strong regulation. Unlike many of its neighbors, Texas has state laws that prohibited consumers from using home-equity lines of credit to increase borrowing to more than 80 percent of the value of their homes. The upshot: Dallas housing prices have fallen only 7 percent from their 2007 peak, according to the Case-Shiller index.
As it has for decades, energy is driving Texas' economy. But it's not because the state's wells are gushing crude. In November 2009, Texas wells produced 1.08 million barrels per day, about half as much as they did in the late 1980s. In recent years, natural gas has been undergoing a renaissance. The state's production rose about 35 percent between 2004 and 2008. And Texas has received a big boost from a different, renewable source of energy: wind.
In this area, Texas' size and history of independence has enabled it to jump-start a new industry. The state has its own electricity grid, which is not connected to neighboring states. That has allowed it to move swiftly and decisively in deregulating power markets, building new transmission lines, and pursuing alternative sources. "We can build transmission lines without federal jurisdiction and without consulting other states," said Paul Sadler, executive director of the Austin-based Wind Coalition. Ramping up wind power nationally would require connecting energy fields—the windswept, sparsely populated plains—to population centers on the coasts and in the Midwest. Texas' grid already connects the plains of West Texas with consumers in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. Texas recently surpassed 10,000 megawatts of capacity, the most by far of any state and enough to power 3 million homes, Sadler says. Wind energy is also powering employment—creating more than 10,000 jobs so far. And it and has attracted foreign companies, including Danish turbine maker Vestas, Spanish renewable-energy giant Iberdrola, and Shell.
Texas today is more suburban engineer than urban cowboy, more Michael Dell than J.R. Ewing. Austin, home to the University of Texas, the state government, and Dell Computer, has a 7 percent unemployment rate. Yes, ExxonMobil is based in Irving.* But the state's energy complex is increasingly focused more on services and technology than on intuition and wildcatting. And it is selling those services into the global oil patch. Russian, Persian Gulf, and African oil developers now come to Houston for equipment, engineering, and software.
While its political leaders may occasionally flirt with secession, Texas thrives on connection. It surpassed California several years ago as the nation's largest exporting state. Manufactured goods like electronics, chemicals, and machinery account for a bigger chunk of Texas' exports than petroleum does. In the first two months of 2010, exports of stuff made in Texas rose 24.3 percent, to $29 billion, from 2009. That's about 10 percent of the nation's total exports. There are more than 700,000 Texan jobs geared to manufacturing goods for export, according to Patrick Jankowski, vice president of research at the Greater Houston Partnership. "A lot of it is capital goods that the Asian, Latin American, and African [countries] are using to build their economies."
Thanks to that embrace of globalization, the Texas turnaround may help lead the nation in its economic turnaround. Texans have always had the ability to think big. Now that their state has become a player in the global economy, we can expect a new kind of swagger
http://www.slate.com/id/2250999/?yahoo=y
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Rents Rising as More Americans Can’t Afford to Buyby JON PRIOR
Purchasing a home remains unaffordable for many Americans despite continued declines in home prices and record low mortgage rates. And in the search for affordable housing, many consumers are relying on an already strained apartment market for temporary accommodation, as housing advisers urge Congress to implement government-backed rental assistance.
The income needed to purchase a median-priced home dropped in 93% of the markets studied by the Center for Housing Policy – the research affiliate to the National Housing Conference, an advocate for policies that promote affordable housing. Yet, despite the drop, many Americans still do not earn enough to own a home.
The study compared and ranked the costs of buying or renting a home in more than 200 US metropolitan areas with the salaries of more than 60 jobs.
Consumers are renting more, according to the survey, but the typical rent for a two-bedroom home rose in 89% of those markets to meet the demand. The rise in rents and drop in homeownership costs are most noteworthy in Florida, where the income needed to buy a median-priced home fell more than 20% in 12 metro markets. Meanwhile, two-bedroom rents rose across all of the Florida markets by nearly 6%.
And with deal-home prices rising, for instance foreclosures hovering near record heights, distressed consumers are finding refuge in the apartment sector. In reaction, Bob DeWitt, CEO of GID Investment Advisers testified to Congress yesterday on behalf of the National Multi Housing Council (NMHC), that government support is needed for the apartment industry. He warned lawmakers not to create a capital shortage for the lower-profile sector as they contemplate ways to reduce taxpayer exposure to the secondary market.
“This is important,” he said, “because the nation is increasingly relying on apartments as fundamental changes in our society are changing the types of housing we need to build. Housing expert Professor Arthur Nelson of the University of Utah projects that half of all housing built over the next 10 years will need to be rental housing to meet the dramatically changing landscape of demand
http://www.housingwire.com/2010/03/24/rents-rising-as-more-americans-can%E2%80%99t-afford-to-buy/
The income needed to purchase a median-priced home dropped in 93% of the markets studied by the Center for Housing Policy – the research affiliate to the National Housing Conference, an advocate for policies that promote affordable housing. Yet, despite the drop, many Americans still do not earn enough to own a home.
The study compared and ranked the costs of buying or renting a home in more than 200 US metropolitan areas with the salaries of more than 60 jobs.
Consumers are renting more, according to the survey, but the typical rent for a two-bedroom home rose in 89% of those markets to meet the demand. The rise in rents and drop in homeownership costs are most noteworthy in Florida, where the income needed to buy a median-priced home fell more than 20% in 12 metro markets. Meanwhile, two-bedroom rents rose across all of the Florida markets by nearly 6%.
And with deal-home prices rising, for instance foreclosures hovering near record heights, distressed consumers are finding refuge in the apartment sector. In reaction, Bob DeWitt, CEO of GID Investment Advisers testified to Congress yesterday on behalf of the National Multi Housing Council (NMHC), that government support is needed for the apartment industry. He warned lawmakers not to create a capital shortage for the lower-profile sector as they contemplate ways to reduce taxpayer exposure to the secondary market.
“This is important,” he said, “because the nation is increasingly relying on apartments as fundamental changes in our society are changing the types of housing we need to build. Housing expert Professor Arthur Nelson of the University of Utah projects that half of all housing built over the next 10 years will need to be rental housing to meet the dramatically changing landscape of demand
http://www.housingwire.com/2010/03/24/rents-rising-as-more-americans-can%E2%80%99t-afford-to-buy/
Friday, April 9, 2010
Dallas area has a flood of hotel foreclosure filings
A perfect storm of overbuilding and a depressed economy is threatening a growing number of Dallas-Fort Worth hotels with foreclosure.In the first four months of 2010, more hotel foreclosure filings have been recorded in North Texas than in all of last year.
And the industry outlook is for defaults to increase.
"The hotel market here got overbuilt and overfinanced," said George Roddy, whose Foreclosure Listing Service track property foreclosure filings in more than two dozen Texas counties. "There are just too many of them."
So far this year, Foreclosure Listing Service has recorded 43 hotel and motel foreclosure filings in the four-county area. That's up from 41 for all of 2009 and just 18 in 2008.
Hotels posted for forced sales by lenders range from the luxury Four Seasons Hotel & Resort in Las Colinas, with $183 million in original debt, to decrepit highway motels with less than $1 million in debt.
"What surprises us was that most of these foreclosure filings didn't occur in 2009," said Randy McCaslin with hotel analyst PKF Consulting.
Lenders may have been waiting to see how the economy was going to play out, McCaslin said.
"It seem like now is the time" lenders have decided to make their move, he said. "It's happening to any real estate that's overleveraged. It was the exceptional hotel that could make debt service last year."
Worst since 1930s
Income from hotel properties has taken a big hit.
From late 2006 to late 2009, D-FW hotel occupancies fell 8.3 percentage points to 45.5 percent, according to the latest data from PKF Consulting.
Over the same three years, average hotel room rates fell 6.9 percent. Rates are down an even greater 12 percent from the peak in 2007.
PKF Consulting says that the U.S. hotel business in 2009 had the worst year since the 1930s.
And the industry now has the highest proportion of troubled properties of any real estate type, according to a recent report by Real Estate Research Corp. An estimated $38 billion in U.S. hotels are now considered distressed.
"The luxury hotels are getting hit the hardest because of the AIG effect," said longtime Texas hotel industry expert John Keeling of Houston's Valencia Group, a hotel investor and developer. "Many business travelers are avoiding the luxury hotels because they don't want to be criticized for spending too much."
Running out
Keeling anticipates that 2010 will be another tough year for Texas hotels and that 2011 won't be much better with only the "beginnings" of room rate and occupancy recovery.
"Will we get there by 2012? That's probably even optimistic," he said.
Keeling said many of the state's hotel operators have "held on by their fingernails" and are now running out of options to meet mortgage obligations.
So far, the lenders have been reluctant to take the properties back, "because they didn't know what to do with them," Keeling said.
In 2009, just $2.5 billion in U.S. hotel properties were sold to investors, according to Real Estate Research – a 77 percent decline in sales volume from 2008. The peak year was in 2007 when $78.5 billion in hotel property sales were recorded.
Hotel brokers say there are buyers for distressed hotels, but so far few good properties have come to the market.
"What we are seeing on the market now is a good bit of junk that needs a lot of renovation," said David Young, a hospitality property broker with Henry S. Miller Commercial. "I've got a bunch of clients that want to buy hotels."
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/....
And the industry outlook is for defaults to increase.
"The hotel market here got overbuilt and overfinanced," said George Roddy, whose Foreclosure Listing Service track property foreclosure filings in more than two dozen Texas counties. "There are just too many of them."
So far this year, Foreclosure Listing Service has recorded 43 hotel and motel foreclosure filings in the four-county area. That's up from 41 for all of 2009 and just 18 in 2008.
Hotels posted for forced sales by lenders range from the luxury Four Seasons Hotel & Resort in Las Colinas, with $183 million in original debt, to decrepit highway motels with less than $1 million in debt.
"What surprises us was that most of these foreclosure filings didn't occur in 2009," said Randy McCaslin with hotel analyst PKF Consulting.
Lenders may have been waiting to see how the economy was going to play out, McCaslin said.
"It seem like now is the time" lenders have decided to make their move, he said. "It's happening to any real estate that's overleveraged. It was the exceptional hotel that could make debt service last year."
Worst since 1930s
Income from hotel properties has taken a big hit.
From late 2006 to late 2009, D-FW hotel occupancies fell 8.3 percentage points to 45.5 percent, according to the latest data from PKF Consulting.
Over the same three years, average hotel room rates fell 6.9 percent. Rates are down an even greater 12 percent from the peak in 2007.
PKF Consulting says that the U.S. hotel business in 2009 had the worst year since the 1930s.
And the industry now has the highest proportion of troubled properties of any real estate type, according to a recent report by Real Estate Research Corp. An estimated $38 billion in U.S. hotels are now considered distressed.
"The luxury hotels are getting hit the hardest because of the AIG effect," said longtime Texas hotel industry expert John Keeling of Houston's Valencia Group, a hotel investor and developer. "Many business travelers are avoiding the luxury hotels because they don't want to be criticized for spending too much."
Running out
Keeling anticipates that 2010 will be another tough year for Texas hotels and that 2011 won't be much better with only the "beginnings" of room rate and occupancy recovery.
"Will we get there by 2012? That's probably even optimistic," he said.
Keeling said many of the state's hotel operators have "held on by their fingernails" and are now running out of options to meet mortgage obligations.
So far, the lenders have been reluctant to take the properties back, "because they didn't know what to do with them," Keeling said.
In 2009, just $2.5 billion in U.S. hotel properties were sold to investors, according to Real Estate Research – a 77 percent decline in sales volume from 2008. The peak year was in 2007 when $78.5 billion in hotel property sales were recorded.
Hotel brokers say there are buyers for distressed hotels, but so far few good properties have come to the market.
"What we are seeing on the market now is a good bit of junk that needs a lot of renovation," said David Young, a hospitality property broker with Henry S. Miller Commercial. "I've got a bunch of clients that want to buy hotels."
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/....
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Bernanke Says Joblessness, Foreclosures Pose Hurdles to Recovery
By Scott Lanman and Darrell Preston
April 7 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said joblessness, home foreclosures and weak lending to small businesses pose challenges to the economy as it recovers from the worst recession since the 1930s.
“We are far from being out of the woods,” Bernanke said today in a speech in Dallas. While the financial crisis has abated and economic growth will probably reduce unemployment over the next year, the U.S. faces hurdles including the lack of a sustained rebound in housing, a “troubled” commercial real estate market and “very weak” hiring, he said.
The remarks reflect concerns by Fed officials at their meeting last month that the job market and tight credit would restrain consumer spending. At the session, Bernanke and his colleagues reiterated interest rates will stay very low for an “extended period.” He didn’t repeat that in today’s speech, while saying the Fed’s “stimulative” rates will aid growth.
“The economy has stabilized and is growing again, although we can hardly be satisfied when one out of every 10 U.S. workers is unemployed and family finances remain under great stress,” Bernanke said in prepared remarks to the Dallas Regional Chamber.
Separately, New York Fed President William Dudley said today that the benchmark federal funds rate “needs to be exceptionally low for an extended period to contribute to easier financial conditions to support economic activity.”
Dudley, who serves as vice chairman of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee under Bernanke, was responding to a question from former U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman, now chairman of Evercore Partners Inc., after a speech to the Economic Club of New York.
Treasuries Rise
Treasuries rose, pushing the yield on 10-year securities down six basis points to 3.89 percent at 2:16 p.m. in New York. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.3 percent to 1,186.26.
At the meeting last month, central bankers left the benchmark rate target, covering overnight interbank loans, in a range of zero to 0.25 percent, where it has been since December 2008.
The median estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News last month is for a Fed interest-rate increase in November.
“Although much of the financial system is functioning more or less normally, bank lending remains very weak, threatening the ability of small businesses to finance expansion and new hiring,” he said.
Securities Purchases
The Fed last week completed plans to purchase $1.25 trillion of mortgage-backed securities and $175 billion of federal agency debt to reduce home-loan costs. Central bankers are debating when to start selling the debt to reduce the Fed’s balance sheet, which has ballooned to $2.31 trillion from its pre-crisis level of about $874 billion.
“We have yet to see evidence of a sustained recovery in the housing market,” Bernanke said. “Mortgage delinquencies for both subprime and prime loans continue to rise as do foreclosures. The commercial real estate sector remains troubled, which is a concern for communities and for banks holding commercial real estate loans.”
Bernanke said some of the economy’s “toughest problems” are in the job market. U.S. employers added 162,000 jobs in March, the third gain in five months and the most in three years. The unemployment rate held at 9.7 percent, close to a 26- year high.
“Hiring remains very weak,” Bernanke said. “I am particularly concerned” that more than 40 percent of those without jobs have been out of work for at least six months, because such spells may erode skills and reduce the workers’ income and employment prospects, the Fed chief said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...UHEGDJho&pos=1
__________________
April 7 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said joblessness, home foreclosures and weak lending to small businesses pose challenges to the economy as it recovers from the worst recession since the 1930s.
“We are far from being out of the woods,” Bernanke said today in a speech in Dallas. While the financial crisis has abated and economic growth will probably reduce unemployment over the next year, the U.S. faces hurdles including the lack of a sustained rebound in housing, a “troubled” commercial real estate market and “very weak” hiring, he said.
The remarks reflect concerns by Fed officials at their meeting last month that the job market and tight credit would restrain consumer spending. At the session, Bernanke and his colleagues reiterated interest rates will stay very low for an “extended period.” He didn’t repeat that in today’s speech, while saying the Fed’s “stimulative” rates will aid growth.
“The economy has stabilized and is growing again, although we can hardly be satisfied when one out of every 10 U.S. workers is unemployed and family finances remain under great stress,” Bernanke said in prepared remarks to the Dallas Regional Chamber.
Separately, New York Fed President William Dudley said today that the benchmark federal funds rate “needs to be exceptionally low for an extended period to contribute to easier financial conditions to support economic activity.”
Dudley, who serves as vice chairman of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee under Bernanke, was responding to a question from former U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman, now chairman of Evercore Partners Inc., after a speech to the Economic Club of New York.
Treasuries Rise
Treasuries rose, pushing the yield on 10-year securities down six basis points to 3.89 percent at 2:16 p.m. in New York. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.3 percent to 1,186.26.
At the meeting last month, central bankers left the benchmark rate target, covering overnight interbank loans, in a range of zero to 0.25 percent, where it has been since December 2008.
The median estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News last month is for a Fed interest-rate increase in November.
“Although much of the financial system is functioning more or less normally, bank lending remains very weak, threatening the ability of small businesses to finance expansion and new hiring,” he said.
Securities Purchases
The Fed last week completed plans to purchase $1.25 trillion of mortgage-backed securities and $175 billion of federal agency debt to reduce home-loan costs. Central bankers are debating when to start selling the debt to reduce the Fed’s balance sheet, which has ballooned to $2.31 trillion from its pre-crisis level of about $874 billion.
“We have yet to see evidence of a sustained recovery in the housing market,” Bernanke said. “Mortgage delinquencies for both subprime and prime loans continue to rise as do foreclosures. The commercial real estate sector remains troubled, which is a concern for communities and for banks holding commercial real estate loans.”
Bernanke said some of the economy’s “toughest problems” are in the job market. U.S. employers added 162,000 jobs in March, the third gain in five months and the most in three years. The unemployment rate held at 9.7 percent, close to a 26- year high.
“Hiring remains very weak,” Bernanke said. “I am particularly concerned” that more than 40 percent of those without jobs have been out of work for at least six months, because such spells may erode skills and reduce the workers’ income and employment prospects, the Fed chief said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...UHEGDJho&pos=1
__________________
Bernanke is Catching on: Says U.S. Must Address Soaring Debt
Mr. Bernanke said the U.S. will ultimately have to decide between raising taxes, cutting Social Security or Medicare, or less spending on everything from education to defense.
By LUCA DI LEO
DALLAS—The U.S. must start to prepare for challenges posed by an aging population with a credible plan to gradually reduce a soaring public debt, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday.
Health spending is set to increase over the long term as the U.S. population grows older, posing challenges to the country's already strained finances, the Fed chief warned.
Meanwhile, Fed Bank of New York President William Dudley said Wednesday that the damage caused by financial-market bubbles should bring about a sea change in the way the central bank acts, with the Fed needing to move toward active efforts to reign in financial market excess.
"There is little doubt that asset bubbles exist and they occur fairly frequently," and when they burst the economy frequently suffers, Mr. Dudley said. While it can be difficult to discern the existence of a financial-market bubble, "uncertainty is not grounds for inaction" on the part of central bankers, Mr. Dudley said.
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Mr. Bernanke, speaking at a Dallas Chamber of Commerce event, said that "unless we as a nation demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal responsibility, in the longer run we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...s_markets_main
By LUCA DI LEO
DALLAS—The U.S. must start to prepare for challenges posed by an aging population with a credible plan to gradually reduce a soaring public debt, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday.
Health spending is set to increase over the long term as the U.S. population grows older, posing challenges to the country's already strained finances, the Fed chief warned.
Meanwhile, Fed Bank of New York President William Dudley said Wednesday that the damage caused by financial-market bubbles should bring about a sea change in the way the central bank acts, with the Fed needing to move toward active efforts to reign in financial market excess.
"There is little doubt that asset bubbles exist and they occur fairly frequently," and when they burst the economy frequently suffers, Mr. Dudley said. While it can be difficult to discern the existence of a financial-market bubble, "uncertainty is not grounds for inaction" on the part of central bankers, Mr. Dudley said.
More
Mr. Bernanke, speaking at a Dallas Chamber of Commerce event, said that "unless we as a nation demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal responsibility, in the longer run we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...s_markets_main
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Manhattan Apartment Sales Jump, Buyers Seek Bargains
By Oshrat Carmiel
April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Manhattan apartment sales doubled in the first quarter as bargain-hunting buyers scooped up co-ops and condos in a market where resale prices have fallen an average 29 percent since their peak.
The number of sales soared to 2,384 from 1,195 a year earlier, New York appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate said today. The median price for a co-op or condo slid 11 percent to $868,000. "
Read More:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aQraOQrodPxg&pos=5
April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Manhattan apartment sales doubled in the first quarter as bargain-hunting buyers scooped up co-ops and condos in a market where resale prices have fallen an average 29 percent since their peak.
The number of sales soared to 2,384 from 1,195 a year earlier, New York appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate said today. The median price for a co-op or condo slid 11 percent to $868,000. "
Read More:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aQraOQrodPxg&pos=5
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