"For Sale by Owner" StataGEEZ!!!

One wonders about the logic some folks apply when trying to sell thier homes without professional advocating. Not much to say about this bloke's Project Plan. It will be interesting to see how this one plays out...

I love these reports

See below...nothing like a trade group to BEG!!!! oh please buy something. They forget...real estate is local, and personal and all the reports in the world are not worth the hole in a chicken's keyster compared to what is seen out the window of the coffee shop. Let's all wait 'til the full report comes out at 10 and then we can open our check books. Read on:

NEW YORK – A trade group report today on sales of existing homes is expected to show selling increased slightly in January. The increase would mark the second straight month of improvement from November's record low.

Sales are expected to rise to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.79 million units, from 4.74 million a month earlier, according to economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters. The National Association of Realtors' report is due at 10 a.m. EST.

Wells Fargo; Go Far Away...please

See the below article pushed forward by Wells Fargo, you know the pigs who got 25 BILLION in Tax payer funds a few month ago and JUST THIS MONTH planned to have a 12 day bash at the Wynn Las Vegas -- until the got caught. which all goes to show, self interest is alive and well...what is the use of an affordability index if no one has the confidence to spend, and no one has the confidence to spend because they feel ripped off by Wells Fargo and the other. The affordability index is out of touch -- just like Fargo and the pigs in Congress who are touching you up...Read on

Big boost for housing affordability
Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Thursday February 19, 2009, 4:59 pm EST
Yahoo! Buzz Print Crashing home prices have led to the most affordable housing market in at least five years, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index released Thursday.

More than 60% of all U.S. homes sold during the last three months of 2008 were affordable - meaning that a family making the national median of $61,500 a year would pay 28% or less of their total income toward housing expenses.

At 62.4% affordable, the figure is up considerably from 56.1% in the previous quarter and 46.6% at the end of 2007, according to the report.

Topping the list of most affordable U.S. metro areas, which ranks areas with more than 500,000 in population, was Indianapolis. This is the city's 14th consecutive quarter in first place; it boasts a full 93% of all homes sold being affordable to median family households.

The least affordable was the New York City metro area, where only 13.9% of homes sold met the criteria.

In the fourth quarter, the national median home price fell to $190,000 from $205,700 in the previous-year period, according to a report issued last week by the National Association of Realtors. That combined with falling mortgage rates has made home buying the most affordable it has been since early 2002.

"Falling home prices and very favorable mortgage rates both contributed to the housing affordability gains we saw in the fourth quarter of 2008," NAHB Chairman Joe Robson, a homebuilder from Tulsa, Okla., said in a prepared statement.

That still wasn't enough to get moribund housing markets moving again. Existing homes sold at an annualized rate of 4.74 million in December, according to the National Association of Realtors, down from more than 7 million during the boom.

And a government report revealed that new home sales crashed to an annualized rate of 331,000 in December, the lowest since record keeping began in 1963.

"Worsening economic conditions, historically low consumer confidence and uncertainty about future home prices kept many qualified buyers on the sidelines," Robson said.

Still no buying push

That affordability has improved so much does not necessarily make people go house hunting, according to Mike Larson, a real estate analyst with Weiss Research.

"You could argue that house affordability indexes are improving but that may not be the best way of defining whether it's a good time to buy," he said. "Concerns about the economy and whether they're going to still have a job have kept many homebuyers from stepping up to the plate."

During the boom, when house affordability plunged, buyers came out in droves. They were confident in the economy and afraid that home prices would soar out of reach. Today, just the opposite applies.

"Affordability is going to get even better," said Larson. "Home prices are not done falling. Buyers recognize this. There's no sense of urgency, and rightly so."

Indeed, according to Nicholas Retsinas, director of Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies, affordability, which was a major factor in homebuying during the boom, no longer matters very much. In most parts of the United States, affordability has returned to where it was in 2002 or 2003.

"The new barrier is willingness to buy," he said.

That's why one major goal of President Obama's housing-rescue plan involves slowing foreclosures to stabilize housing markets and foster consumer confidence.

"If that happens, maybe people will start thinking, 'Hey, maybe prices won't go down tomorrow,'" said Retsinas.

Most and least affordable

Affordability in Indianapolis, the 33rd largest metro area in the United States with 1.7 million people, was buoyed by fairly high median income of $65,100 and rock-bottom home prices. The median price for a home sold during the quarter was just $103,000, according to the National Association of Home Builders report.

Those prices, combined with reasonable mortgage interest rates, make home-buying in the area a snap. A buyer of a median-priced home putting 20% down would pay only about $450 a month in mortgage expenses.

But even though house buying costs are reasonable, the city's weakening economy meant it did not escape the foreclosure plague. More than 20,000 homes, representing nearly 3% of the city, received a foreclosure filing of some kind in 2008, the 26th highest rate in the nation.

Other most affordable towns were: Warren, Mich. (89.6%); Youngstown, Ohio (89.4%); and Detroit (89.3%).

In the New York City metro area, home prices took a steep dive during the quarter, to $455,000 from $500,000 three months earlier. But even that was not enough to dislodge the city from its rank as the most unaffordable metro area in the land.

Median income in the area is $63,000, less than in Indianapolis and, with home prices more than four times higher than in the Midwestern metropolis, only 13.9% of the homes sold there were affordable to median income families.

That was still a major improvement from two years ago, when only 5.1% of homes sold during the fourth quarter of 2006 were affordable. And New York households have been barely brushed by foreclosure so far with only 0.71% receiving some kind of foreclosure filing during 2008.

Other least-affordable metro areas included San Francisco at 20.6%, where affordability improved greatly from 5.7% during the second quarter of 2007; suburban Long Island, where 25.5% were affordable; and Los Angeles, where 26.9% were.

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And now for the Happy Numbers out of Washington

Just hide you cash under the bed and call it an honest mistake when they bag you for taxes...you'll be fine; just ask all the Obama-bend-over-boys (and babes)how they do it....

WASHINGTON – The unemployed population is getting older and more educated as companies ramp up layoffs and the recession deepens.

The total number of unemployed increased by more than 50 percent from January 2008 through last month, but the number of jobless Americans 55 or older jumped 70 percent, according to new Labor Department numbers released Friday.

And for people with college degrees, the number rose even more sharply, by nearly 85 percent.

The numbers confirmed a trend that job cuts are moving up the age and educational ladders, said Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project.

Layoffs are hitting middle managers and professional services firms as the recession enters its 15th month. Stettner said that's a shift from earlier in the downturn, when job cuts were concentrated in industries like construction, retail and manufacturing, where workers are generally younger and less likely to have college degrees.

Many employers are reluctant to hire older workers, Stettner said, because they may demand higher pay and companies may not want to take a chance with those who are shifting careers.

Age is more of a factor than it has been in previous recessions: Americans over 55 made up 12.8 percent of the 11.6 million unemployed last month, double the proportion in January 1982, when the country was mired in a steep recession. The aging work force explains part of the difference, but not all, Stettner said. The proportion of older Americans in the labor force has increased by 50 percent since 1982, he said.

Meanwhile, Americans over 55 constituted only 10.6 percent of the unemployed in January 2003. Unemployment peaked that year in the aftermath of the 2001 recession.

Nearly 15 percent of the unemployed have a college degree, up from 13.8 percent in January 2003 and 9.7 percent in January 1993 — another year when unemployment peaked after a recession that ended two years earlier.

The information on age and college education is just a sample of the wealth of information, beyond the headline unemployment rate, that shows up in the Labor Department's monthly employment report. Here are some more details about who is included in the ranks of the jobless, by the numbers.

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COMPARING JANUARY WITH PAST DOWNTURNS

11.6 million: People unemployed in January 2009.

11.9 million: People unemployed in November 1982, the final month of the last recession of more than a year.

10.8 percent and 111.1 million: Unemployment rate and total work force in November 1982.

7.6 percent and 153.7 million: Unemployment rate and total work force in January 2009.

September 1992: Last time the unemployment rate was this high.

60.5 percent: Portion of the total population that had jobs in January.

May 1986: Last time the portion was this low.

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JANUARY UNEMPLOYMENT RATE BY GROUP

7.6 percent: Adult men

6.2 percent: Adult women

10.3 percent: Female heads of households

6.2 percent: Asians

6.9 percent: Whites

9.7 percent: Hispanics

12.6 percent: Blacks

20.8 percent: Teenagers

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LAID-OFF WORKERS

6.98 million: Unemployed in January 2009 who were laid off or completed temp jobs.

3.79 million: The same figure in January 2008.

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JOBS HARDER TO FIND

22.4 percent: Share of unemployed in January who've been looking for 27 weeks or longer

18.1 percent: The same figure in January 2008, one month into the recession.

22.8 percent: The share in June 2003, when the unemployment rate peaked after the last recession.

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SNAPSHOTS OF JANUARY'S UNEMPLOYED

2.75 million: People who were trying re-enter the work force after leaving work for reasons such as parenthood or retirement.

2.1 million: People who wanted to work, were available for work and had looked for work in the last 12 months, but had not looked in the last month.

7.8 million: People working part-time because of slow work or business conditions.

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WHO'S SURVEYED

60,000: Number of households interviewed in the monthly Census Bureau survey from which the unemployment rate is extrapolated.

40 percent: Portion of companies in the survey of businesses, from which payroll and job loss numbers are extrapolated, with fewer than 20 employees.

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LOCAL HIGHS AND LOWS

22.6 percent: Unemployment rate for El Centro, Calif., in December — the most recent month for which a local figure is available.

2.7 percent: December rate for Morgantown, W.Va.