Each month the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of the Treasury produce a monthly scorecard on the health of the nation’s housing market. The scorecard incorporates key housing market indicators and highlights the impact of the administration’s housing recovery efforts.
In the December 2014 report it said homeowners’ equity, total property value less the mortgage debt outstanding, was up almost $168 billion from the previous quarter, reaching nearly $11 trillion, the highest level since the second quarter of 2007.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) seasonally adjusted purchase-only house price index for October showed home values rose 0.6 percent over the previous month and 4.5 percent over the previous year. The year-over-year house price gain in October was slightly higher than the 4.4 percent gain in September. The FHFA Index shows that U.S. home values are approximately on par with September 2005 prices and now stand 5.1 percent below their previous peak in March 2007.
Lenders started the public foreclosure process on 55,906 U.S. properties in November, down 1 percent from the previous month but up 6 percent from a year earlier. Lenders completed the foreclosure process (bank repossessions or REOs) on 25,249 U.S. properties in November, down 10 percent from the previous month and down 17 percent from one year ago.
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that sales of existing homes — including single family homes, townhomes, condominiums, and cooperatives — fell 6.1 percent to a pace of 4.93 million in November, but were 2.1 percent higher than a year ago. Existing home sales lost momentum as inventory showed some tightening.
In all, more than 9 million mortgage modification and other forms of mortgage assistance arrangements were completed between April 2009 and the end of November 2014. Encouraging news notwithstanding, there is a need to continue with recovery efforts to foster home sales, help homeowners that are underwater, and reduce mortgage delinquency rates that remain elevated. There is also considerable geographic variation in market conditions not captured in the national statistics, which suggests some markets are improving at different rates than others.