Some home sellers will now pay Medicare taxes on some of the proceeds of their home sale — hidden evils of the health care bill.  In effect, there is a now a Federal Transfer Tax for some individuals on their homes.   This is tragic.  Calculating… Read more

House Passes Standalone Bill Extending Closings for $8,0000 Tax Credit to Sep 30 — Senate Now Needs to Do Likewise While the US Senate had already included provisions for extending the time allowed to close contracts signed originally qualifying for an $8,000 homebuyer tax credit,… Read more

Realtors Asking Congress to Extend Closing Deadline for $8,000 Tax Credit on Homes With Contracts Signed Prior to May 1, 2010 — Short Sales Not Expediting Adequately – Realtors Want Congress to Tweak Tax Credit Timeline- Wall Street Journal

Just-released Spring edition of NAR’s Commercial Magazine Commercial Connections. See page 12 of NAR’s Commercial Magazine for my article on commercial real estate values and cap rates.  Bad news is that commercial real estate values have plummeted.  Great news is that transaction volume will increase… Read more

NAR summarizes NY Times article on homebuyer tax credits – expensive but they worked.  The linked article estimates that more than $8 billion of payments (through February 2010) went to people that would have purchased the home regardless. http://www.realtor.org/RMODaily.nsf/pages/News2010042801?OpenDocument

Record 19 Million Vacant US Homes (and why prices are NOT going up for the next 18 to 24 months) http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-vacant-housing-hits-record-19-million-2010-04-26?siteid=nbih

Demand for real estate is a function of effective demand (and that really means jobs).  But you should never say demand without also saying supply.  It’s the interaction of the two that yields prices.  Denver, for example, has added more than 149,000 new dwelling units… Read more

Per NAR Existing Home Sales Up 7 Percent Year-Over-Year in February But Down Sequentially Almost 1 Percent From January — Median Price Down 1.8 Percent Year-Over-Year — Supply Up to 8.6 Months from 7.8 Months in January February Existing-Home Sales Ease with Mixed Conditions Around the… Read more