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Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Home Sales Rise

Existing-Home Sales Rise in FebruarySales of existing homes increased in February and remain within a fairly stable range, according to the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.

Existing-home sales – including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – rose 2.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.03 million units in February from a pace of 4.89 million in January, but remain 23.8 percent below the 6.60 million-unit level in February 2007.

The sales pace has been in a fairly narrow range since last September.Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said the gain is encouraging. “We’re not expecting a notable gain in existing-home sales until the second half of this year, but the improvement is another sign that the market is stabilizing,” he said. “Buyers taking advantage of higher loan limits for both FHA and conventional mortgages will unleash some pent-up demand. As inventories are drawn down, prices in many markets should go positive later this year.”

The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $195,900 in February, down 8.2 percent from a year earlier when the median was $213,500. Because the slowdown in sales from a year ago is greater in high-cost areas, there is a downward pull to the national median with relatively fewer sales in higher priced markets.

Source: NAR

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Mortgage Relief Provision

IRS Explains Mortgage Relief Provision

The IRS has released IR-2008-17 to alert taxpayers how to comply with the new mortgage cancellation tax relief provisions enacted at the end of last year.

Borrowers who had some portion of their mortgage debt forgiven in 2007 should receive a Form 1099C from the lender identifying the amount of forgiven debt.

The borrower/taxpayer will file a newly-created form to report to the IRS that the debt relief was for a qualified mortgage.

The new form, Form 982, and instructions are available at the IRS website, http://www.irs.gov/.

The mortgage relief provision applies to debt forgiven in 2007, no matter when the mortgage was entered into. The most frequent circumstances in which there is a debt forgiveness is on foreclosure, short sale or mortgage workout or reformation agreed to with the lender.

Source: TBR Newsletter