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From Florida Realtors Website – Aug. 30, 2011

Spring buying pushed home prices up for a third straight month in most major U.S. cities in June.  Analysts say home prices have stabilized in coastal cities over the past six months. But many Sun Belt cities have reached their lowest point since the housing market went bust more than four years ago.

“These shifts suggest that we are back to regional housing markets, rather than a national housing market where everything rose and fell together,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the S&P’s index committee. The index measures prices compared with those in January 2000 and creates a three-month moving average. The June data is the latest available.

From Florida Realtors Webpage – Aug. 29, 2011 

Pending home sales declined in July but remain well above year-ago levels, according to the National Association of Realtors® (NAR). All regions show monthly declines except for the West, which continues to show the highest level of sales contract activity.

“The market can easily move into a healthy expansion if mortgage underwriting standards return to normalcy,” says Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist. “We also need to be mindful that not all sales contracts are leading to closed existing-home sales. Other market frictions need to be addressed, such as assuring that proper comparables are used in appraisal valuations and streamlining the short sales process.”

 “The underlying factors for improving sales are developing, such as rising rents, record high affordability conditions and investors buying real estate as a future inflation hedge. It is now a question of lending standards and consumers having the necessary confidence to enter the market.”

From Florida Realtors Webpage -  Nationwide housing affordability during the second quarter of 2011 hovered for the 10th consecutive quarter near its highest level in the more than 20 years, according to National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index (HOI). 

According to the HOI, families earning the national median income of $64,200 could afford 72.6 percent of all new and existing homes sold in the second quarter. The affordability measure dipped slightly from the record high of 74.6 percent set in the first quarter, but it remained above the 70 percent threshold initially achieved in the first quarter of 2009.

Some housing markets across the country have stabilized and are beginning to show signs of a budding recovery.

From Florida Realtors Website -  August 18, 2011

Fifteen of Florida’s metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) reported higher existing home sales in July; 13 MSAs had higher existing condo sales.

The national median sales price for existing single-family homes in June 2011 was $184,600, up 0.6 percent from a year ago, according to NAR. In Massachusetts, the statewide median resales price was $325,850 in June; in California, it was $295,300; in Maryland, it was $247,100; and in New York, it was $221,595.

In Florida’s year-to-year comparison for condos, 6,619 units sold statewide last month compared to 5,904 units in July 2010 for an increase of 12 percent. The statewide existing condo median sales price last month was $90,900; in July 2010 it was $87,800 for a 4 percent increase. NAR notes the national median existing condo sales price was $182,300 in June 2011.

From the Sarasota Herald Tribune - 

From MSN Real Estate -  From Florida to Washington state, more people are choosing to “deconstruct” their homes and other buildings. Today, “easily 75% to 90% of a house” can be reused or recycled, says Bob Falk, a research scientist at the Forest Service’s USDA. Around 270,000 homes are torn down annually in the U.S., and most of the debris goes to dumps or landfills. That’s a staggering 1 billion board-feet of timber alone going to the dump — enough to make tens of thousands of homes, he says.

Just one year’s demolition debris is enough to build a wall 30 feet high and 30 feet wide around the entire border of the continental United States, according to the Deconstruction Institute.  The idea has gotten new wind under its wings in the past several years, as more people care about doing right by the environment — and more governments are watching their landfills fill up. “We have only scratched the surface on the opportunities to do this,” says Falk.

From Florida Realtors Website - Aug. 8, 2011 – Offshore investors are flocking to Florida’s distressed real estate prices as major companies with ties to Hong Kong, Spain, Argentina and Malaysia are snapping up properties. International companies can park their investment and position themselves for the next development cycle.

As Americans worry about the economy and debt ceiling, international investors still perceive the U.S. as “the most reliable country in the world,” said Andrew Hellinger, chief executive of Coral Gables-based Hellinger & Penabad. “We are a country where you can place your money for investment and know it’s safe.”

From Florida Realtors website – Aug. 2, 2011:

Bank of America will be donating 100 foreclosed homes in Cleveland, 100 in Detroit, and 150 in Chicago – with nine other cities are expected to be added by the end of the year – to local agencies and contributing to their demolition. Wells Fargo, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Fannie Mae are also moving forward on similar demolition plans for its most decrepit homes.  “The best thing we can do to stabilize the market is to get the garbage off.”

The homes slated to be demolished by Bank of America have been deemed uninhabitable, with some of the homes worth less than $10,000. The bank said it would cost too much money to restore the homes. The property’s land will be used for development, open space or urban farming, according to a company statement.

From REIClub.com

If you think there’s a short supply of money, there’s an even shorter supply of time. Time is something that you can’t make any more of. It is the one thing that broke people and multi-millionaires alike gripe about not having enough of. There is a maximum number of hours you are able to work week after week. And the number of hours you desire to work each week is probably much, much smaller than that.

For Real Estate investors, the only real solution for not having enough time is the same as the solution for not having enough money — use someone else’s. Fortunately, it’s a lot easier to find someone who is willing to give you their time than it is to find someone who will give you their money. Many investors wish they could get rid of their full-time jobs so they would have more time to pursue real estate deals.

The big secret to having more time is to make a list of everything you do.  Prioritize and ask for help or hire someone when you need it.  When you have done this, it will amaze you how much more productive you can be, how many more deals you can do, and how much closer you have come to having the income and the lifestyle that made us want to get started as real estate entrepreneurs in the first place.