Business and Finance news

After several days off to spend some quality time in airport terminals and assorted family members’ living rooms, I’m back at work and feeling the need to pierce my post-holiday haze with a few real estate statistics. Here’s where we are: In Santa Clara County today, according to MLSlistings.com, there are 6,091 houses and condos for sale (some of those may already be in contract to sell; the new MLSlistings doesn’t allow public users to weed those out of the search results, at least so far as I have been able to tell). Of those, 682 are priced at $400,000 or less. Twelve months ago if I had written that sentence you would have been sure I’d made a typo. The county’s for-sale inventory — and that of the region — has fallen for the past two months, but it’s a seasonal thing, and doesn’t mean that herds of buyers have suddenly started writing out deposit checks. According to a recent report from Coldwell Banker Silicon Valley, 181 houses and condos went into contract in the week ending 12/21. At the same time in 2006, new sales contracts totaled 244.

Average rates for 30-year conforming mortgages, meanwhile, inched up a tiny bit from last week, to 6.17 percent with average points at 0.5, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly survey, out today. But at HSH Financial Publishers, whose survey combines both conforming and jumbo loans, today’s daily average shows the 30-year loan at 6.76 percent with average points of 0.29.

And what about new homes? Housing construction permits for the San Jose metropolitan statistical area, which includes San Benito County, kept falling in November compared to 2006 free credit report and score. For the first 11 months of 2007, developers obtained permits to build 4,377 single-family and mult-family housing units, which was down 24.6 percent from the same period in 2006. Those stats are courtesy of the California Building Industry Association, and they were released on 12/21. For a table showing lots of other metro areas, go here. Statewide, the only area that saw an increase was Santa Cruz/Watsonville, and the numbers there are small.

The most recent report from brokerage Movoto.com said that at the end of November, 18 percent of for-sale listings in Santa Clara County appeared to be some sort of distress sale, based on remarks the listing agents included about the properties.

How many local real estate and mortgage professionals left the business in 2007? I don’t know the answer to that one yet, but will try to find out.

OK, so we’ve caught up on a few things. What will 2008 bring? Will it be the year that every remaining real estate agent in the Bay Area becomes a short sale expert? The year that seller carry-back financing makes a resurgence? Will we see even more social-media-user-generated real estate sites, or will some of the ones begun in the last two years flame out? Will the federal government’s plan to alleviate foreclosures amount to anything? Will undaunted markets like Palo Alto and Cupertino finally be affected by the slowdown? Will we see the next generation of risky loan products emerge, or will it take a few years for those to materialize? Will you be able to sell your home? Can you afford to buy one? Just asking.
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