Explore Real Estate: News

When I mention reverse mortgage in a crowded room, there is usually an awful silence, or it feels as if an elephant just entered the room. Many people put reverse mortgages in the same category with castor oil and the black death. I find that most of this bad press is based upon disinformation or worse, lack of information.

Oh, how correct Bob Dylan was when he wrote this song 40 years ago! Not only has the mortgage market suffered through the most chaotic period ever, but now, in response to the chaos, the regulators are wielding their mighty swords to make sure that it never happens again. Some of the changes have valid elements but, in general, it seems as if we are throwing the baby out with the bath water instead of effecting positive and well-considered policy which helps the consumer. I will try to sort out the changes that we know about today.

Indeed, the bloom may be off the rose. We've been floating along with great rates for six months hoping that good times would last forever. Last Wednesday (May 27) however, was a watershed day for mortgage rates with rates jumping as much as .5% in a single day. Nothing happens in the markets that can be thought of as a mistake. The blow-up in the treasury and mortgage markets was a clear signal that interest rates are increasingly more vulnerable to higher rates with the Treasury borrowing $2Trillion this year and about the same next year.

In a recent posting on his santafereview.com Web site, city observer George Johnson says that there are more than 800 properties for sale in Santa Fe County for $300,000 or less — by Santa Fe standards, affordable. Given that, Johnson wonders, “do we need to be designing whole new neighborhoods of moderately priced homes?”

But let’s deconstruct the figures. www.realtor.com , a Web site compiled from the Multiple Listing Service used by Realtors nationwide, shows just over 1,000 properties for sale in Santa Fe for $300,000 or less. But more than half of these list...

The number of Realtors in town appears to be falling as fewer Santa Feans are buying and selling homes.

The Santa Fe Association of Realtors said Wednesday its membership declined over the last year from around 1,050 to 900. Group CEO Donna Reynolds said she wouldn’t be surprised if more Realtors left the business because of the sluggish housing market.

And a quick recovery doesn’t appear to be in the cards.

The group released a report Wednesday comparing home sales during the last three months of 2008 to the same period in 2007. In Santa Fe County territory outside the city limits, median home prices fell from $549,125 in 2007 to $427,500 year-to-year.

And...