Many states are trying to work their way out of what’s been deemed a housing industry crisis. To say that things have been bad across the country would be an understatement. In 2009, the top housing markets were those that weren’t in a freefall, including my home area of Syracuse, which was flat yet considered as the 2nd best in the country.

Whether or not you believe unemployment has improved (it hasn’t), things have definitely stabilized in a fashion. And in some states there are plenty of houses that are available for purchase. And yet, not including places like Chicago, which has rebounded fairly well, those homes aren’t being purchased, and home ownership isn’t growing, or at least not growing enough to overcome the bad times.

What’s the problem? In my opinion, it’s all in the hands of the banking industry. True, I blame the banking industry for causing the problem in the first place, and now I’m blaming them for keeping it down. There are many reasons I’m blaming them; let’s take a look.

1. Not giving up the loans. I understand that banks have had a hard go of it, but many of them have gone too far in the other direction and are looking to loan people money who don’t really need it. When rich people with credit scores over 800 can’t get home loans, you know that banks have become skittish on who they want to loan money to.

2. Bank closings. So far, 102 banks have been closed in 2010; this is about 45 more banks than were closed at this point last year. Many more banks are projected to be closed this year. Many of the banks that have been closed are in states that are still having major problems with housing. As other banks are taking over, they’re being a lot more judgmental in who they’re going to give loans to.

3. Banks holding on to foreclosed homes. In some states that have had high foreclosure rates, banks are artificially trying to keep home prices up by keeping some homes off the market. Picking and choosing which homes they want to put on the market means there are many homes that someone might want that they can’t buy. Florida has many homes at low prices, and many of those homes are starting to be snapped up. It’s better for everyone if they can buy whatever home they want, even if the prices are lower, because it helps stimulate the entire industry. Banks, let up on the foreclosed properties.

4. Not processing loans quicker. The reason the federal government had to extend the time for people to finish qualifying for loan modifications is because banks could care less whether people qualify for it or not. They got called out for not processing more of these loans in a timely matter, but the truth is that it didn’t work in their favor, or at least they didn’t perceive that it did, so they didn’t have any reason to try.

That’s enough for the moment. To be somewhat fair, banks do have to change up their criteria a little bit. Some people who purchased homes before weren’t really qualified to buy those homes at the prices they got them for. Low interest rates don’t protect banks from people with risky credit, and that’s understood as well. However, as long as banks in areas with depressed housing markets won’t work with brokers and consumers to try to get them into homes, those markets will continue to suffer, which means the entire country will suffer along with them.

Very little surprises me anymore when it comes to seeing that minorities suffer the most on many financial levels. First it was hearing that blacks and Latinos are taking the worst hit on unemployment than anybody else. Then it was hearing that black farmers still haven’t gotten money from the government that the Justice Department says they deserve. Next on the list was hearing that Wells Fargo, along with many other banks, we’re giving minorities higher mortgage rates to purchase homes than anybody else.

So it comes as no surprise hearing that black and Latino homeowners have suffered more than non-minorities as it pertains to foreclosures. At least as its related to home loans between 2005 and 2008. For that group, it seems that 8% of the foreclosures were from minority homeowners, whereas none minority homeowners had their homes foreclosed upon at 4.5%. The reason this is an important figure is because it shows that even now, lenders are treating minority home owners differently than anybody else, hitting them with interest rates so much more above the norm that they are at the greatest risk of having their homes foreclosed upon. The study by the Center for Responsible Lending also stated that black and Latino communities will suffer the most in declining property values between 2009 and 2012, to the estimated tune of $373 billion.

Of course foreclosures hit everybody across the board, and the overwhelming number of foreclosures came from bad deals that occurred back in the 90s. However, knowing that this is still a common problem, and in listening to some pundits say that they believe all of this is the fault of Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who helped pass a law to equalize lending for minority applicants, it seems to indicate that lenders pretty much ignored the law in the first place, thus abdicating Rep. Frank of any responsibility for the present crisis.

What happens now? Who knows, since it seems foreclosures are still occurring, even at a lesser rate since so many homes have already been foreclosed upon, and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.

A news story by CNN Money came out and asked this question: Is A Housing Shortage Coming? Their premise is that, because of the housing industry issues that have plagued the country for a few years, that there aren’t enough homes for those people who are ready to buy either existing or new homes.

Frankly, when I read stories like this, it makes me wonder about the intellect of these people who supposedly have some kind of finance background, or at least some investigative skills. Are there enough houses? Please!

For most of the country, there are plenty of houses. Well, that’s kind of a misnomer, so let me clarify this. In those states that have suffered the most, there are so many homes available that it’s amazing banks aren’t working more with potential home owners in getting those loan applications through and those homes purchased. In California, there were so many homes available that banks which had foreclosed on many of those homes took some of them off the market because they were driving prices too low. In that case, the homes are there, but the banks might not be making them available.

However, as bad as the housing industry has had it, there were still places where homes were still being built. In places like my home area, Syracuse NY, new homes are being built as fast as ever in the suburbs, while the city is starting to convert more downtown property to condominiums to entice 20 and 30-somethings to move back and help the city grow again. In many parts of Texas, home building has never slacked off either, as they have weathered the housing crisis fairly well for their size.

In the story, cities that were highlighted were New York City, San Francisco and Seattle. New York City has had a problem with space for years, which means that has nothing to do with home builders not trying to build homes. And NYC has been losing population, so if present condominium owners, since there really aren’t lots of houses throughout parts of the city, decided to drop prices a little bit, there are plenty of spaces available for occupation. I don’t know San Francisco or Seattle as well, but the reports are that both cities will have housing prices dropping possibly through 2012. If housing prices are dropping, it means there’s plenty of available space for new home owners or tenants. After all, prices don’t drop if there’s too few homes.

True, there might be some communities where there aren’t enough homes available. I just don’t feel it’s as pervasive as CNN Money believes it is.

Should have seen this coming. Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which has been run pretty much by the government since 2008, have been “asked” by the New York Stock Exchange to delist themselves and to stop trading stock. That’s because the prices have fallen very low, with Fannie Mae around $1 and Freddie Mac under $2. The minimum dollar amount allowed by the NYSE is $1 a share.

This is a blow both to the conservatorship and how the government has run them and the housing industry overall. Both of these entities loan and guarantee money to consumers and other lenders, and without the ability to raise capital on their own, it’s questionable how much support the federal government is going to be able to give them; they seem to have their own issues right now with unemployment, health care, and of course BP.

By the way, shares of both fell below $1 once the announcement was made, which means the NYSE pretty much sealed the fate of each company with the public request. Standard & Poor’s believes it’s going to get worse for both corporations before it gets better, believing that the earliest a turnaround might occur is in 2012. That’s bad news for both companies and the housing industry.

In what has to be a move to help them stave off some state attorneys general, as well as boost up some good publicity for a change, Bank of America is forgiving around $3 billion in debt owed them via bad home loans and people who are going through foreclosures. The amount comes to 30% of total mortgage balances owed them.

The reason this is such a big deal is twofold. One, B of A risked a major lawsuit based on high risk loans that came from Countrywide Financial Corporation, which was bought by B of A in 2008. Though those types of loans came before their ownership, they were on the hook of having to go to court to fight this one, which would have been very expensive and cost them in publicity. Two, it gives a lot of people relief in a lot of states, because it virtually wipes the slate clean for people who are in really dire straits because of the loans, and gives them another opportunity to try to get loan modifications to help them with their payments.

There are a couple of caveats, though. Homeowners have to have missed at least two months of mortgage payments. Also, they have to owe at least 20% more than their home is currently worth. I’ll admit that I’m not quite sure how that second one works, unless they’re talking about a scenario where you purchased your home for $100,000, but with interest you owe $270,000, and after two years you still owe $225,000 on the home, or something like that. If that’s the case, it won’t help homeowners who have owned their homes for a long time and are now in trouble.

Still, it’s a nice step forward, so at least for a few days I won’t be beating up on B of A.

Mortgage rates vary depending on the type of loan you obtain and for how long you are borrowing it. The rate also differs from one lender to another. When you plan to obtain a home loan, you must shop around and compare the monthly mortgage payments and total interest on different loans with the help of an online mortgage calculator. This will help you go for a loan that you can comfortably repay.

What are the market factors that determine mortgage rates?

There are certain factors beyond the lender’s control that affect mortgage rates. Before you start comparing interest rates on different home loans, you must know the following factors:

* Inflationary trends: Inflation directly affects the mortgage rates. During inflation, the value or purchase power of money decreases. An increased rate of inflation increases the interest rate on home loans. On the other hand, lenders reduce the rates during deflation.

* Stock market: The credit supply and demand in financial market get affected by fluctuations in stock market and this in turn affects the mortgage rates. When stocks go up, individuals prefer putting money on stocks over investing on mortgage backed securities. In such a case, the interest rate on home loans will increase.

* Federal Reserve discount rate: The Federal Reserve Discount Rate is the rate at which the Federal Reserve Banks charge other banks for borrowing money from them. When the discount rate increases, obtaining credit becomes expensive. Hence, banks are not able to borrow much. As a result of this, the financial institutions increase the rates on mortgages.

What are the individual factors that affect your mortgage rate?

Lenders rely on various factors to determine the risk they take by lending you money. The risk is reflected in the interest rate they charge you for the mortgage. Some of the factors are:

* Types of mortgage: There are different types of mortgages available at varying interest rates. If you choose an adjustable-rate mortgage, the initial rate will be lower than that of fixed-rate mortgage and generally increase with rise in market rates. The mortgage rates will also be different in the case of jumbo loans and hybrid loans.

* Credit score: Your credit score is the most important factor that lenders consider while offering you a home loan. If you have a good credit score, you will be able to obtain the mortgage at a lower rate of interest.

* Type of property you are purchasing: If you require a home loan to buy your primary residence, lenders will offer you a reduced rate. This is so because lenders believe that people generally do not default on mortgage payments on primary residence.

The mortgage rates may also differ based on the location of your property. Before obtaining a mortgage, it is wise to compare the total interest payment on various loans with the help of an online mortgage calculator. This will help you to go for the one that is most affordable for you.

Samantha Taylor is the Community Mentor of MortgageFit and has been contributing her suggestions to the Community since 2005. Not just that, she has also made notable contributions through the various articles written on different subjects related to the mortgage industry. Few of her popular articles would include names like ‘Mortgage that you can afford’, ‘Mobile Home Loan with Bad Credit’, and How much mortgage can I borrow?’

It’s safe to say that most of us live in areas where we’d love to be able to contain our energy costs in some fashion. If you live in cold climates, you have to deal with high energy bills in the winter. If you live in warm climates, you have to deal with high energy bills in the summer and sometimes in the winter in trying to stay cool.

The big move these days is towards finding more energy efficient, or “green”, ways of living. Some people will make moves such as direct water heating, where instead of having a hot water heater they have some kind of apparatus installed at points where they can get water that heats the water only when needed. Others hope to go even further, such as adding solar panels or other alternatives of capturing “free” energy to their home.

Yet, this isn’t widespread, and we all initially know the reason why. It’s expensive to upgrade your home for this kind of energy efficiency. I checked into it a few years ago, and learned that it would cost nearly $38,000 to add solar paneling, batteries, etc, to my home. That’s a third of what my house is worth, so obviously it’s pretty steep in my mind. Based on my current heating bills, even with the increase in oil prices, it would take about 9 years to recover the costs of something like that, even with a state rebate.

Here’s the other problem. It turns out that adding something like that to your home doesn’t increase the value of your home. According to CNN Money, when appraisals are done, they don’t take into consideration any green initiatives you’ve added to your home. This means a $100,000 home whose only upgrades are to green alternatives will still only be worth $100,000, or whatever the market price for the home is at that time.

Sure, environmentalists would love if all of us decided not to worry about price and just did the right thing but that’s not economically feasible across the board. Even adding used solar panels and batteries, which can cost upwards of 50% or more less than new, is still an expensive proposition, especially when compared to modernizing your kitchen, something that definitely adds value to your home.

This just proves that it’s not as easy a decision as one would hope it might be in deciding whether or not to add certain energy efficient initiatives to a home.

State Farm Insurance, the biggest homeowner insurance carrier in the state of Florida, announced that they were canceling the homeowners insurance of around 125,000 residents because they see those homes at the greatest risk of serious damage if another big hurricane comes through those areas.

Last year, State Farm had petitioned the state to increase rates for some of its customers by 47% to help boost themselves against major losses caused by having to pay out for damages to homes caused by major hurricanes in 2004 and 2005. The amount paid out from just two specific hurricanes cost the company more than $29 billion, which they’re still trying to recover from. They’re not alone when it comes to losses, as the Office of Insurance Regulation projected that 102 of the 200 largest Florida carriers were running net underwriting losses.

State Farm stated that it was losing more than $20 million a month, which is why they’d asked for the rate increase. They ended up being allowed to raise rates 14.8% and were given permission to drop those policies that were most vulnerable. They had been considering leaving the Florida market altogether if they hadn’t been granted some kind of relief.

It’s hard to be mad at State Farm in this instance. It’s acknowledged that many homes haven’t been built as sturdily as they should have, with crooked contractors and the like, and we all know the damage that hurricanes can do to properties that are built well. It seems to show that the price of living in “paradise” can sometimes be quite high. Still, it’s another blow to the housing market in Florida, which has suffered already through high foreclosure rates and the closing of many banks due to bad loans.

CNN Money came out with a list of their top 10 predicted foreclosure hot spots for 2010. Let’s take a quick look at the cities:

The strange and scary thing about this list is that only three of the cities above have high unemployment rates, those being Boise at 10.1%, Portland at 10.8%, and Myrtle Beach at 13.3%. Sioux Falls is only at 4.9%, though that’s up from 2.9% at the beginning of 2009, and Provo is sitting at 5.5%. Even Honolulu is only at 5.9%.

What the figures are based on is a comparison to older data which shows an increase of around 100% or more for each of these areas. They’re not looking at the areas that have been slashed and burned and continue to be, such as Las Vegas, which still leads the nation in foreclosures. Instead, they’re looking at data which suggests that across the United States the default rate on mortgages is steadily increasing, no matter the factors, and therefore these cities that actually have had low numbers in foreclosures, for the most part, might start experiencing some of the same types of problems that larger cities have been dealing with.

Bad housing deals all around, it seems; and the banking industry doesn’t believe it needs an overhaul.

It seems 2009 was more memorable than anyone hoped it would be as it pertains to the housing market. A record number of foreclosure notices went out in 2009, and more are expected in 2010 to break 2009′s record; how scary is that?

There were around 2.8 million foreclosure notices that went out in 2009. In December alone, 349,000 households were hit with one; Merry Christmas indeed. That happened even though a few banks said they would suspend foreclosures for the holidays. The overall figure was 21% higher than 2008. And it’s predicted that number will grow in 2010 to between 3 and 3.5 million homes.

The thing taking most of the blame is, of course, unemployment. Though its pretty much held steady over the past couple of months, it’s expected to continue to rise. I’ve said here that I think it will shoot up once the February numbers come out because I believe there were a lot of part time temp jobs filled to produce items for the holidays, and to man retail stores hoping for more shoppers. Those aren’t the kinds of jobs that allow people the ability to afford to buy new homes en masse.

What can stem this tide of foreclosures? Last year the government encouraged many banks to put a moratorium on foreclosing on homes, and created a loan modification program that, unfortunately, not many people were able to take advantage of. Most of those who did qualify were only approved temporarily, which means that wasn’t much help, and everyone who was approved took a hit on their credit scores (worthless numbers I keep saying). So, there needs to be more than that.

Last year’s stimulus package turns out to have been used more to keep jobs than to create new jobs. The government points to a number of jobs that were created, saying it was around 640,000 as of October officially, believing it was closer to 1 million jobs, but they also admitting that figure included saved jobs. I tend to believe it had more to do with saved jobs than anything else. One would think that the unemployment rate would have shown at least a minor decrease at some point after the first quarter of the year, when the biggest numbers of people being laid off occurred.

Back to housing and foreclosures. Here’s my opinion and suggestion on some of this.

One, any bank that has more than 35% of their mortgage policies with interest rates of more than 7% should be forced to renegotiate those rates, whether homeowners credit looks good or bad. Banks are creating a lot of debt that’s false debt, earning money that never existed, and it’s hurting a lot of people in a tough economic time.

Two, there should be a moratorium against any bank that wants to foreclose against homes until they’ve reduced that figure to at least 15%. That would really shock the system, but I’m more on the side of people than I am of the banks.

Three, any banks that will be in trouble because of having to do this should be forced to sell off some of their properties to banks that can handle this. Notice that no banks in New York and many other Eastern states were shut down in 2009? Community banks and credit unions seem to know better how to do things; maybe there are some lessons larger banks and lenders need to learn.

Four, local governments in areas where there have been a lot of foreclosures need to go out and reassess properties down to reduce taxes on those who are still in their homes. Yeah, I know those cities and towns need their money, but the truth is that it’s possible by reducing taxes on those homes, and homes that are foreclosed on, it might make those properties more enticing to buyers, and let’s face the fact that communities can’t get paid if there’s no one in the home.

There are my four ideas; anyone have any others?

Isn’t anyone else making news these days besides Citigroup?

In a surprise move, Citigroup announced today that they will be suspending foreclosures for a month to give a break to their borrowers for the holidays.

Of course, that magnanimous offer doesn’t cover a heck of a lot of people. They estimate that, overall, it will help 4,000 families. It’s still a nice offer, but it’s not like it would be taking even the tiniest chunk out of their profits for the year. The extension will last until January 17th.

Oh yeah, there’s a caveat. It only covers loans through Citigroup. If your loan is through someone else but you make your payments to Citi, it doesn’t count. It also doesn’t cover all of you who have asked for loan modifications and haven’t had them approved yet, of which more than 100,000 of you are either waiting, or have only been approved for short term relief.

Hey, it’s better than nothing, right?

Goodness, what a tough time to live in Los Angeles. A report that came out by Zillow.com said that the value of homes in Los Angeles went down by a total of $60.8 billion in in the first 11 months of 2009. That’s the highest figure in the country, but still less than last year’s loss of $345.8 billion.

Some other cities were listed as well. For instance, Chicago values went down $49.6 billion through November, New York City homes went down $49 billion, and Miami-Fort Lauderdale homes went down $45.9 billion. The last one, to complete the worst five, is Phoenix, which decreased $45.1 billion.

Boston homes gained $23.3 billion during the first 11 months of the year, the best performing large city. Nationally, home values dropped $489 billion through November, compared with $3.6 trillion in 2008.

So, how does one gauge information like this? Is it good news because the rates are slowing down, or is it still horrible news because if you add last year’s loss to this year’s loss it’s still, in total, higher than it was last year, at least for most cities? In other words, the value of Los Angeles property is down $405.8 trillion since the beginning of 2008; that’s still really bad.

Of course, because it’s Zillow, I do have a slight question as to its overall validity. Earlier this year they showed my house gaining in value while the rest of the area was decreasing, and in the last four months the worth of my house has decreased almost $60,000, which makes absolutely no sense until you know a bit more about my neighborhood. At the beginning of the year, there were two homes on the market on this street, but both were FSBO‘s. Around April or May, that’s when both homes hooked up with a realtor, and, because they’d been trying to sell their homes for a long time, once listed with someone, the value of my house started dropping. So, I don’t have the greatest faith in their statistics.

Still, we know that, with all the foreclosures and lagging home sales, the value of homes across the country have dropped. So, whether it’s fully accurate or not, we know the news isn’t great.

On Monday, the Treasury Department decided it was time to get tough with mortgage lenders who have been participating with the government’s program to help people modify their loans to more affordable rates so they have a better chance on keeping their homes and being able to pay their mortgage for awhile, but aren’t giving up the funds.

What they announced is that they will be sending people in to see just what these lenders are doing. They’re starting with the top 8, with plans on checking on everyone else as they can. They’re also going to publish a list of all 71 lenders to show who’s getting the job done and who isn’t. My thought is that even those who are at the top of the list won’t be considered by most of us to be doing a good job.

The lenders have said that most of the people coming in either aren’t completing the paperwork, aren’t doing it properly, or aren’t doing it at all. Lenders, on the other hand, supposedly have completed more than 1/3rd of completed applications, but haven’t heard back on whether they’ve been approved or not. That information also comes from the Treasury.

In health care, if people are giving incomplete information, there are others who are able to help them complete that information. This happens when people are trying to apply for Medicaid or other types of financial assistance. If incomplete paperwork is really the issue, and if the lenders care about receiving the government money, they would have some people ready to help these people out.

Is what the Treasury is about to do a good thing? I’m not quite sure, but it seems necessary in the wake of the criticism that’s coming about because of another plan that’s not working the way it was intended, for whatever reason. One can only hope that someone will end up doing the right thing in the end, whether it’s the lenders or the government cutting these lenders off.

They may not be having problems with bankruptcy or foreclosure, but the super-rich are finding out that their fancy, expensive homes aren’t selling any better than the homes of regular folks like us who try to sell our homes. Some of them are even discounting their homes at percentages the rest of us wouldn’t ever want to consider to try to find buyers, while others are just taking those homes off the market to reduce the embarrassment factor of it all.

Take Candy Spelling’s home as an example. It’s one of the few homes where the price tag hasn’t come down, yet at $150 million for 100 rooms, which includes more than one theater room, a barber shop and beauty shop, and many other things that most homes wouldn’t have, it’s had almost no lookers, let alone anyone even thinking about purchasing it.

Forbes Magazine highlighted another home that was initially on sale for $125 million in Connecticut that’s had its price slashed to $60 million. That’s still a pretty powerful price for the rest of us, but having to take that kind of hit on one’s house is still stunning.

What’s going on? Most people that have the money already know that they don’t want to use their own money to purchase homes whose value might still fall even further than it already has. So they’re waiting to see if some of the prices of these homes bottom out. At the same time, they’ve also started watching their own money more closely, so a home like the Spelling home, which hasn’t lost any of its value, doesn’t hold the same appeal in a world economy that’s taking a beating.

So, take heart if you’re having problems selling your home; you’re not alone.

Not that we didn’t know this, and not that I’m necessarily repeating myself, but home owners are still facing big problems in this country, as well as the entire real estate industry.

A report came out this week saying that only around 5% of home owners have been able to get new mortgages to adjust their payments because of the change in what their homes were worth. Mortgage lenders are still reticent on lending money, and are scrutinizing present home owners so much that they’re just not willing to give up their positions, and thus are turning down people, even if they have great credit scores, something I wrote about last December, of all things.

And, oddly enough, some of those people who got loan modifications only got temporary passes, so to speak, as the Congressional Oversight Panel stated that, as of September 1st, only 1.26% of these loans were permanent. The help that the Obama Administration gave so that more people could qualify for at least some kind of relief was supposed to come with the possibility of having 5 years of relief; nope, guess not.

Meanwhile, foreclosures have been holding steady, but there are worries that another big round could soon be on its way if the Administration can’t help figure out a way to get more banks and mortgage lenders to open up their pocketbooks and help homeowners out.

For their part, banks are saying they’re confused by some of the paperwork, as are the home owners, and that’s scary. Citigroup, whom I bash often, says that most home owners give incomplete information or don’t fully complete the forms. They’re one of those lenders who have only approved 1,800 people for full relief and have over 89,000 others on a temporary plan; that comes to only 2%.

This one is definitely going to go on for awhile, and that’s a shame.

The residential real estate market is still in trouble across the country. On Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors released a report saying that 80% of all homes in major cities had home prices fall in the 3rd quarter of the year. They said that more than 30% of all home deals came from “discounted distressed sales.”

What they mean is that the homes that were being negotiated were all those houses that have been foreclosed, or are being negotiated for short sales. The reality is that there are just too many of those homes for sale, and those prices have dropped drastically in many places. You can literally get a house in Florida for 90% less than its original value in some places. In some neighborhoods of Detroit, you can actually purchase a house for less than $10; just amazing.

Of course, the pricing of homes is kind of a game in and of itself. I refer to a site like Zillow, which earlier this year had the worth of my home climbing way beyond anywhere I’d have ever thought possible in this economy. In the last four months, however, supposedly its worth has fallen almost $65,000, without anything in the area happening except one couple, which had been trying to sell their house as a FSBO for more than a year, finally hooked up with a realtor, and have drastically reduced how much they want for the house so they can get out of here and move to Florida.

It’s no wonder that the government extended the home credit another year. What they now need to do is encourage the banks to start lending to home owners, since they’re not going to get them to fully overhaul their credit card issues any time soon. And hopefully, they’ll be more amenable to the process; I doubt it, though.

How strange. Just yesterday I wrote and said not to get too excited over home prices rising, and the next day a report comes out saying sales of new homes dropped drastically. Then the Commerce Department comes out with a report saying that new home sales dropped 3.6% in September, the first decrease since March, though overall it’s up 22% since January.

The reasons for this are speculated to be:

* the pending end to the $8,000 tax credit

* the increase of more homes in the West and South being foreclosed upon

* the fact that it’s taking longer for new home owners to be approved because of worries that some of them could turn into the same bad risks that have helped bring the real estate market crashing down (which, in my opinion, isn’t the fault of buyers, but sneaky lenders)

* the glut of foreclosed homes, which offers a lot of good deals versus building new homes

The last stat there is a big one, as the sale of pre-existing homes went up 9% in September. That actually makes sense in my mind, and the only reason I’m not surprised that figure isn’t higher is because unemployment is still on the rise.

At the same time, foreclosures are starting to slow down, which I still say has more to do with the fact that there are fewer homes left to be foreclosed upon in those areas that were the hardest hit, rather than believing the economy is getting better. California, Florida and Nevada are still leading the way in the number of foreclosed homes, with Las Vegas at the top of the list. But their numbers are starting to ease some, as the foreclosures in large cities is slowing down. Yet, up the street from Las Vegas, Reno shows an 80% increase in foreclosures, which doesn’t surprise me after spending a month there at the end of last year.

New on the list is Boise, ID and Provo, UT, which showed jumps in foreclosures of 141% and 120% respectively. Both areas are being hit hard by unemployment now, which is the major cause of all these foreclosures in the first place.

I implore the federal government to put another freeze on foreclosures like they did earlier in the year. Someone really needs to take a look at this, and force banks to work with some of these homeowners to keep their homes. This has to be stopped as quickly as possible.

It was reported that home prices had gone up for three months in a row, after being in a decline for so long. Actually, home prices had been up in some areas and not in many others, but they seem to be going up in most major American cities, at least for now.

Home prices through August have shown a gain of 1% from July in 20 major cities, but they’re still down more than 11% from August of last year. What’s bringing the number down is the collapse of home prices in cities like Las Vegas, which declined even more in August, and is down 56% in value from the same time last year.

So, what drove this increase in home prices? The $8,000 tax credit is getting a lot of, well, credit for this mini-boom. And that’s problem number one, as there’s only one more money of this benefit before it goes away. Will it go away for good is an interesting question, since it was actually an extension of a previous credit of $7,500 from the year before.

Problem number two is that unemployment, if it continues, will mean more homes will be foreclosed upon, more people will be in default, and spending will stop again. Unfortunately, unemployment doesn’t seem to be slowing down any, and with Capmark going into bankruptcy, potentially signaling that the commercial real estate bust is about to begin, it doesn’t seem feasible to expect home prices to continue growing for much longer.

Still, a little good news isn’t such a bad thing, right? I’m sure the housing market will take it for now, and hope to build on it in some fashion for the future.

This isn’t an area that I’d thought about until I read a recent news story, but it seems that apartment vacancies are down to their lowest rate in 23 years. That rate is 7.8%, which to me doesn’t seem all that high until you realize that apartments usually have people on waiting lists for vacancies, and that doesn’t seem to be an issue right now.

Apartment complexes are considered commercial property for the owners, as opposed to retail property for the renters, and suddenly this is another scary proposition we all have to think about. It was pretty much thought that many of the people who gave up their homes were renting apartments, but that doesn’t seem to be as much the case as people moving in with relatives because it cost less money. That, and the fact that more apartment complexes have begun checking credit reports (which is the sickest thing in the world to me) and refusing some people whose credit reports don’t fit their standards. I can understand that if your apartment is worth $2,000 a month, but for apartments $1,000 a month or less, that’s ridiculous.

The price for renting is also coming down. NYC apartment prices dropped 1%, but is still over $2,600 a month on average; that’s just ridiculous, but that’s NYC. Across the entire country, rent dropped .5%, to an average of $1,035 a month; still too high if you ask me. In this economy, where people are taking lower paying jobs to sustain themselves, you drop your profit margin somewhat and help people move into your complex if you’re having problems getting new renters in the door. I know the question; what about the people already living there. Find a way to give them a bonus or benefit. Be creative; just get it done.

Because, if you don’t at least have enough people so you can make your mortgage payment the rental problems will be solved because many apartment complexes will close, and people will be forced to move to other apartments. But I don’t think anyone wants to see it solved that way.

New York state potential homeowners are finally getting some love; at least some of them are. SONYMA, which stands for the State of New York Mortgage Agency, is offering its own boost to the federal government’s $8,000 tax credit program. In this case, if you qualify, you could get around a 20% discount off your annual mortgage interest costs.

This isn’t as simple to understand as the federal government’s program; this is New York after all. So, in a nutshell, if your interest in one year came to $10,000, you get to take 20% of that interest off the top and claim it as a credit towards next year’s taxes. Then you can still claim the rest of your interest to the federal government; you don’t get to double dip on this one.

Once again, it’s only limited to first time homeowners, and there are financial requirements. And it’s these financial requirements that are going to eliminate a lot of folks downstate, I hate to say. For a household with 3 or more people, the income can’t exceed $107,520, and the house price cannot exceed $637,640. The price limits are the same for Nassau and Suffolk Counties, but the income threshold is higher — $142,520 for homes with three or more people.

What about the rest of the state? I can’t tell you, because there’s no other information except for what’s printed above. Not that most of the rest of the state was in dire need of the program anyway, but places such as Buffalo could certainly use the help, but they’re not mentioned. One can only hope that this agency isn’t forgetting that there’s more to New York state than NYC.

If they don’t, though, that would be par for the course.