Los Angeles is the place that everyone wants to see, is is the “Sultan of Sprawl”, but most people would not have known this by looking at the country’s fastest growing suburbs. Not one of these falls in the L.A. metropolitan area. The people living in L.A. have decided to move to San Bernardino, 60 miles east of L.A. This is where twelve of the country’s 100 fastest growing suburbs are located. It has experienced 130% growth since 2000.
After rising five straight weeks in a row, the rates on 30 year mortgages have gone down a little bit during this week as investors heard rumors suggesting that the economic drag will continue longer than they hoped.
Mortgage giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.69 percent this week. That was down from 6.74 percent last week, when rates had jumped to the highest level in 11 months. Analysts said the slight retreat occurred because financial markets saw two weak reports on housing as indications that troubles in the slumping sector are continuing to mount.
Like most people, Kurt Montufar, is taking advantage of the housing slump that seems to be getting worse as time goes by. Being one of the many homebuyers who were rejected as being out of the price market during the last boom, Montufar is looking for the perfect home to purchase. With foreclosures rising and sellers being forced to lower their prices, homebuyers are having the time of their lives.
Some people are thinking that it may be a good time to buy into a second home rather then purchasing your primary home. The nation’s second home market seems to be repelling investors in waves and the blow is so crushing to the second home market that the nation’s primary housing market downturn pales by comparison. Second home sales fell last year, falling 18.56 percent to 2.72 million, compared to 3.34 million in 2005, according to the National Association of Realtors’ annual “Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey”.
Shares of Beazer Homes USA Inc. fell more than 8 percent Wednesday after the FBI said it is among agencies investigating possible fraud in the company’s mortgage lending practices and other financial transactions. The homebuilder said it was cooperating with a federal prosecutor’s request for documents.
The Atlanta-based company, which has suffered hefty losses amid a downturn in the housing market, is the subject of an investigation by the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office in Charlotte, N.C., along with the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, FBI agent Ken Lucas said Tuesday.
The Vancouver Island Real Estate Board’s (VIREB) summary for the month of February stated that normal sale prices have gone up as well as real estate transactions. 76 single-family residential homes were sold in the Comox Valley area. In the month of January only 59 homes were sold. The president of VIREB, Jennifer Lynch, stated that the market seems to be performing just as they expected.
“We saw a surge in activity in February, brought on by more listing inventory,” she said. ” Homeowners and realtors are gearing up for a busy spring in a robust market.” There was a 14 per cent increase during the month of Febuary in 2006 to the recent month when the sale price rose from $260,112 to $297,189.