Interesting Stats About Housing Market

Interesting report compiled from responses from 500,000 real estate agent responses.

http://www.campbellsurveys.com/AgentSummaryReports/AgentSurveyReportSummary-June2009.pdf

Little long but some good ditties of info:

Partial Summary of Statistics and Facts

Key statistics and facts from the survey results include:

• The market for home purchases can be divided into segments of 26% for
damaged REO, 23% for move-in ready REO, 14% for short sales, and 36% for
non-distressed properties.

• Forty-three percent of homebuyers are first-time homebuyers, 29% are current
homeowners, and another 29% are investors.

• First-time homebuyers account for the majority of move-in ready REO sales while
investors account for the majority of damaged REO sales.

• Current homeowners concentrate their home purchases on non-distressed
properties and buy comparatively less damaged REO.

• Real estate agents expect appraisal issues to be the No. 1 reason for
cancellations of signed Purchase and Sales agreements over the coming
summer months.

• Only 31% of non-REO home sale listings are unforced or optional; other major
reasons for listings include financial stress (including short sales), long distance
relocation, and divorce or estate sales.

• Homeowners are choosing to not list homes primarily because of “Falling prices”,
followed by “Competition with distressed properties”.

• For first-time homebuyers, “Government incentives to buy (tax credits, mortgage
deduction)” is the No.1 motivation to buy.

• For current homeowners buying homes, “Retirement relocation” and “job
relocation” are the No.1 and No. 2 motivations to buy, respectively.

• “Sale of residence” is the No. 1 impediment to current homeowners seeking to
buy another home.

• “Downpayment for mortgage” is the No. 1 impediment to first-time homebuyers
seeking to buy a home, followed by “Slow answers on short sale offers.”

• Seventy-six percent of first-time homebuyers accept a mortgage
recommendation of the real estate agent, 68% of current homeowners accept a
recommendation, and 53% of investors accept a recommendation.

• On average, mortgage servicers take 9.5 weeks to provide a “yes” or “no”
response to an offer to buy a short sale property.

• According to real estate agent respondents, “Mandated one-week response time
on short sales offers” is the No. 1 rated action that the government could take to
increase home sales and stabilize prices.

• According to real estate agent respondents, “Provide consistent one-week ‘yes’
or ‘no’ response to offers” is the No. 1 rated action that the mortgage servicers
could take to increase short sales.

• According to real estate agent respondents, “Provide consistent one-week ‘yes’
or ‘no’ response to offers” is the No. 2 rated action that the asset managers could
take to sell REO properties with lower overall losses; the No. 1 rated action is
“Turn on utilities for inspections.”