Real Estate Won't Recover Until 2017

Commercial property values are in free-fall. Real estate's lost decade endures.

There's another bomb hidden in the real estate market, but unlike subprime mortgages, this one will take a decade to explode. Commercial properties--offices, hotels, malls--could suffer a wave of foreclosures like the one that hit the residential market last year, says Deutsche Bank analyst Richard Parkus. As tenants struggle to make rent, delinquencies are up, bringing down rents and values and hurting the already struggling secondhand market for mortgages that cover these properties.

Since many banks, insurers and investment funds hold those mortgage-backed bonds, they could be looking at steep losses in the next few years. This could signal new and unexpected writedowns for banks with commercial mortgage backers, including large players like Bank of America ( BAC - news - people ) and Citigroup ( C - news - people ) as well as regional banks like Regions Financial ( RF - news - people ), SunTrust Banks ( STI - news - people )and Fifth Third Bancorp ( FITB - news - people ).

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May foreclosures third highest on record

Government plan does not need time, it just simply is not working! Here is the article that I disagree with

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. foreclosure activity for May ebbed from April's record, but mortgages still failed at a staggering pace as President Barack Obama's rescue programs had not had time to fully take root, RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

Foreclosure filings dipped 6 percent in the month but increased 18 percent from May 2008, marking the third highest month on record.

"There were almost one million foreclosure filings in a three-month period, and that's simply unprecedented," Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac in Irvine, California, said in an interview.

Temporary freezes on foreclosure activity ended in March. Failures of many seriously delinquent loans that were put on hold during those moratoria have been thrust back into the foreclosure cycle.

One in every 398 households with loans got a foreclosure filing in May. Filings, which include notices of default and auctions, were reported on 321,480 properties last month.

Stemming foreclosures is seen critical to bolstering home prices, consumer confidence and the recessionary U.S. economy.

Bank repossessions, known as real-estate owned or REOs, rose in May and should spike in coming months because the moratoria ended, RealtyTrac said.

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Housing To The Rescue

Sales of existing homes are expected to come in above last month's reading. Can that reverse the Dow's slide?

Can housing turn the market around after Monday’s steep slide? Existing home sales for May are due tomorrow morning after trading begins. Economists expect an increase to 4.82 million sales from 4.68 million in April. That would be a 3% increase, slightly higher than last month’s 2.9% jump.

Investors need some good news after the three major U.S. stock indexes fell by more than 2% each during the week’s first trading session after the World Bank lowered its economic forecast and commodities tanked. The rout came on top of last week’s declines, when the Dow fell 3%, the S&P 500 lost 2.6%. (See “Dow Slides 200 Points”)

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Best Cities To Get Ahead

Look here if you're willing to work hard to ride out the recession.

Today, being able to "get by" financially is enough for most people. But others are looking for more. They're looking for a big break.

Houston, recognized for its dynamic business environment, might be able to provide that. With high wages relative to cost of living and a fairly low unemployment rate of 6.3%, considering the financial turmoil over the last year, these factors make it the best city to get ahead.

Other cities offering similar opportunities include Dallas,Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and Boston.

In Depth: Best Cities To Get Ahead

It's not surprising that two Lone Star state cities come out on top. Houston boasts 20 of the best big companies in the country and 19 of the best small companies, according to Forbes' lists, including Sysco ( SYY - news - people ), human resources firm Administaff ( ASF - news - people ) and Noble Energy. ExxonMobil ( XOM - news - people ), Southwest Airlines ( LUV - news - people ) and Texas Instruments (TXN - news - people )--along with 15 other top companies--call Dallas home.

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D-FW foreclosure postings hit new high

Dallas-Fort Worth area home foreclosure postings are hitting new highs, with more than 6,000 properties set for sale next month.

That’s a 62 percent jump from a year ago, according to Addison-based Foreclosure Listing Service.

The latest tally of foreclosure postings easily topped the last record of just over 5,500 filings for May’s auctions.

Many of the current filings are homes that have been previously scheduled for foreclosure but were not sold at auction by the lenders, Foreclosure Listing Service reports.

So far this year, more than 35,000 D-FW home foreclosure filings have been recorded – a 20 percent rise from the first seven months of 2008, Foreclosure Listing Service said Thursday.

In Dallas County, currently 2,579 homes are threatened with foreclosure – 56 percent more than a year ago.

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Study: More than 30% of Dallas-area home sellers have to cut price

More than 30 percent of Dallas-area home sellers have to cut their price at least once, according to a new study.

Dallas had one of the highest home-price reduction levels in the country, the report by Internet real estate firm Trulia Inc. said Friday.

And almost 40 percent of sellers of higher priced homes here – those offered for $1 million and more – have been forced to trim their asking price, the research shows.

Nationwide, about 23.6 percent of home listings have had at least one price rollback, the just-released survey says.

The average price cut across the country is 10.6 percent.

But in the Dallas area, sellers prune their prices by about 8 percent.

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Dallas-Fort Worth pre-owned home sales fall 24%

North Texas pre-owned home sales dived by almost a quarter in May compared to a year earlier.

But even with the big decline, median prices were down only a fraction, according to statistics released Monday.

Real estate agents sold just under 6,000 pre-owned single-family homes last month, Texas A&M University’s Real Estate Center and the North Texas Real Estate Information Systems reported. It was the lowest home sales total for the month since 2000.

Through the first five months of 2009, pre-owned, single-family home sales in North Texas have fallen by 24 percent from the same period of last year, and condo sales are off 33 percent.

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