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...might take even longer for true strength to be evident in the housing market. "Recent estimates suggest that it would take about 33 months to clear all troubled mortgages at the current pace of liquidations," wrote Merrill Lynch analyst Michael Hanson in a recent note. Alex Barron, founder and senior research analyst at Housing Research Center LLC, has similar worries: "We need to be concerned about the homes that are significantly underwater but haven't yet defaulted," he says. "It may take another two, three or four years before we're well on our way towards a real recovery...
...While many analysts believe the market has stabilized, they emphasize that housing has a deep hole to climb out of. Since the housing peak in July 2006, home prices have plunged 30% on average, with certain bubble markets such as Phoenix, Las Vegas and parts of Florida seeing prices plummet more than 60%. Losses from the housing meltdown totaled $7 trillion at the end of 2009, according...
...housing market overall is starting to stabilize and move a bit sideways but certainly is not on the upswing," says Heather Fernandez, vice president of Trulia, a real estate research firm. "Our best guess is that the market continues to move sideways in 2010 and we start to see recovery in sales and prices in more markets across...
Rick Sharga, vice president of marketing for RealtyTrac, is cautiously optimistic that the program will help slow foreclosures. "One of the things that's prevented more success on these [loan-modification] programs is, we've had a principal-balance problem, and this program, on the face, would seem to resolve that." He says it's long been believed that homeowners would be able to support mortgage if they were based on current market values. Right now, many can't refinance because their loans are worth more than their houses, he says...
...Research Center LLC, is more bearish. He says this latest program of foreclosure prevention is just another way to delay rather than solve the problem. "My head is spinning," says Barron. "They keep exacerbating the problem. All this government interference is simply prolonging the inevitable." Barron says the housing market needs to correct on its own at this stage - "and the sooner it's allowed to do so, the sooner we can get on to a real recovery...