A Busy News Day

MegaphoneBefore the nation falls into a tryptophan-induced coma, there sure was a lot of real estate and mortgage chatter today.

First, the September 2008 Case-Shiller study reports home values down 17.4% over 12 months in its 20-city sample. Portland was down 8.6% from a year ago, and another 1.3% from the August numbers–the 7th ‘best’ ranking in the study. Home prices in Portland are down 9% from the peak of July 2007. According to the numbers, the Portland area has given back all value earned since February 2006. Read Case-Shiller report here.

Then the FHFA (Federal Housing Finance Agency, formerly OFHEO) put out their numbers, showing Portland down only 2.64% for Q3 vs. the same quarter in 2007. There are significant differences in the two studies, but I don’t have time to highlight them. (Here are some reasons why the Shiller and OFHEO numbers differ.)

Finally, mortgage rates reached the year’s lowest levels upon news of the Fed’s $500 billion buyup of mortgage-backed securities from Freddie, Fannie, and Ginnie. I heard from my normal list of trusted lenders, then from another half dozen of which I have never met, that rates had plummeted today. Can’t blame the latter for the spam–good news is hard to come by. I heard conventional and FHA rates could be found as low as 5.25% APY.

(Note to local lenders who send 2+ megabyte newsletter attachments with rates, I heard this first from Rhonda Porter in Seattle, via Twitter. Check it out. My email inbox will thank you.)

Photo by toddheft, used under Creative Commons license.

November 25, 2008 · Filed Under Market Activity, Mortgages, National News

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