On Tuesday the Appraisal Institute released a statement in response to a comment by Lawrence Yun, National Association of Realtors chief economist, who stated that the increase in existing home sales in May was less than expected because poor appraisals are stalling transactions. Yun further claimed that faulty valuations are keeping buyers from getting loans.

Bill Garber, Director, Government and External Relations responded:

“We take offense with the notion that an appraisal is only good if it happens to come in at the sales price. That mentality helped cause the mortgage meltdown to begin with. The fact that the value reflected in the appraisal does not match the sales price is not the fault of the appraisal but a result of the market today.

“It should be pointed out that neither the buyer, the seller, the Realtor nor the builder is the client of an appraiser in a typical real estate transaction. In transactions where buyers are seeking loans, our clients are the lenders. Appraisers provide lenders with objective information and value opinions that help protect them from making questionable loans and investments and help them minimize risk. However, that should not suggest a bias toward lower valuation. Appraisers reflect the market, and sometimes, the markets don’t act like we want them to or hope they will. Nonetheless, competent and professional appraisers understand this and develop credible estimates of value that ultimately help ensure that lenders loan the proper amount, buyers don’t pay too much and sellers get a fair price.

“In these complex markets, it is particularly important that lenders use only the highest caliber of appraisers. Members of the Appraisal Institute holding the MAI, SPRA or SRA designation have met extensive experience and education requirements and must comply with a strict Code of Professional Ethics and Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice.”

The Appraisal Institute is a global membership association of professional real estate appraisers, with over 25,000 members and 91 chapters throughout the world.

Image Credit: dno 1967, Flickr

On Monday, a few signs pointed to the possibility that the real estate market in the United States has begun to stabilize and possibly even begun its trek to recovery. According to the National Association of Realtors, the number of existing houses sold jumped more than 5% in February compared to January’s data.

House Sold (Image: Flickr)

Although sales are still down by double-digit percentage points from this time last year, this month-to-month jump was the largest on record in over five years. The median price of a home was slightly more than $165,000.

Many reasons are hypothesized for why the sales of existing homes rose, however one factor that can’t be denied is the falling price of real estate. Compared to this time in 2008, the average price of a home is down more than 15%. In some areas of the country, prices are down more than 30%.

For those looking to buy a new home, unprecedented deals are now available. That said, considering the job losses expected throughout the rest of 2009, the number of people who can afford to buy a home is expected to decrease in coming months.

There’s been no shortage of bad news regarding the housing industry. If you’re looking for more, here’s a bit: foreclosures increased again last month.

RealtyTrac, an online provider of foreclosure information, reported that foreclosure activity rose once again in August. This time, activity rose by 12 percent. You can read the company’s press release about this here.

I know everyone’s waiting for the RealtyTrac release that proclaims that foreclosure activity is going down. Unfortunately, that release doesn’t look to be coming anytime soon.

According to RealtyTrac, one in every 416 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing during the month. That’s a lot of pain for a lot of people.

Nevada saw the highest percentage of foreclosure filings last month, according to RealtyTrac, with one in every 91 households receiving a notice during the month. California and Arizona rounded out the three states with the highest foreclosure rates.

There’s no longer any way that associations like the National Association of Realtors can claim that the housing and mortgage crises are being overblown by the media. The housing industry’s failures are behind everything from Leman Brothers’ failure to the federal bailout of AIG. It’s time for the real estate industry’s largest trade groups to admit that the housing industry’s problems aren’t being exaggerated by the media. They’re very real, and they’re not getting any better.

Durin g the housing boom of 2001 through 2006, the prices of single-family homes and condominiums shot up to amazing levels. I remember wondering, once the median sales prices of existing homes raced past the $200,000 mark, how were most people in the United States going to afford a home?

Now that the housing market is in the midst of a huge slump, the average cost of a home hasn’t been rising nearly as fast. But that doesn’t mean that U.S. housing, on average, is cheap. Far from it. According to the National Association of Realtors, the median sales price of existing homes in the second quarter of 2008 came in at more than $206,000.

But there are affordable homes out there, if you know where the look. The secret, of course, lies in searching out cities and towns that few others considered destination areas.

BusinessWeek has an interesting story about this here.  The story features a couple whose combined yearly income is only $33,000. Yet, this couple owns a home, and doesn’t worry much about making their mortgage payments. That’s because the home only cost them $48,000. The home has three bedrooms, a full basement and central air conditioning. It’s also located in a town that few would consider a hip or exciting place to live, Youngstown, Ohio.

Finding an area of the country where housing prices didn’t skyrocket during the residential boom is the key to finding truly affordable housing. There are plenty of such municipalities. They may not be as “exciting” as New York City, Los Angeles or Chicago. But to some people, low mortgage payments are plenty excitement enough.

Lately I’ve felt a bit like a broken record. Every post seems to include some bad news regarding the residential real estate market.

Well, here’s a change: Today, I bring good news. Sales of existing homes actually increased in July, reaching their highest level in five months, according to the National Association of Realtors.  Of course, the housing market being what it is, the news isn’t all good. The sales numbers are still far below what they were last year at this time.

The sales of existing homes — which includes single-family homes, townhouses and condominiums — jumped 3.1 percent in July. Sales, though, were down 13.2 percent than in July of last year.

So there you have it, some good news, depending on how you look at it.

I often disagree with the statements put out by the National Association of Realtors. This is the association, after all, that spend years denying that a “housing bubble” existed. We all know how that prediction turned out.

But the association has said at least one statement that I really believe in: The next hot residential market might be homes within walking distance to shops, restaurants, parks, schools and mass transit.

Officials with the Realtors association say that a growing number of buyers today want their homes to be within walking distance of just about everything.

This is why transit-oriented developments — dense housing clusters located near commuter rail and bus stations — have become so popular. More people recognize not only the health benefits but the lifestyle advantages of living in a walkable neighborhood.

When my wife and I purchased our home about two years ago, we deliberately chose a home in an older neighborhood that was located close to our Chicago-area town’s downtown, the school our children would be attending, the local library and several parks. I’m  thrilled with our distance. After all, who wants to spend all day jumping into and out of their car?

And don’t forget: That home in a walkable neighborhood will probably fetch a healthy price when it’s time to sell.

The end of the month has been a bad time for anyone following the residential real estate market: This is when associations like the National Association of Realtors release their monthly housing sales statistics. It’s also when the data regarding housing foreclosures come out.

For a long time now, both these statistics have been depressing. And that didn’t change in June.

I’ve already written about yet another decline in sales statistics. Today, I have bad news regarding the number of housing foreclosures: They were up again in June. Significantly.

According to RealtyTrac, a national provider of foreclosed properties, one in every 171 households received a foreclosure notice in the second quarter of this year. That’s an increase of 121 percent compared to the same quarter one year earlier.

This is further evidence that the housing assistance legislation that Congress passed earlier this month is sorely needed.

What about you? Are you facing foreclosure? Know someone who is? What happened that led to this?

It’s becoming quite the ritual: Another month passes, and the National Association of Realtors announces another drop in the sales of existing homes.

June, unfortunately, did not break this trend.

The sales of existing homes — which includes single-famiy homes, condominiums, townhouses and co-ops — fell 2.66 percent in June. This puts yearly sales down 15.5 percent, so far, from last year. And remember that everyone thought last year was a terrible one for home sales?

Well, this year is going to be even worse.

The good news is for buyers. The national median housing price continued to drop, falling 6.1 percent from one year earlier. It now stands at $215,100. Last year at this time, it was $229,000.

The National Association of Realtors last week released their latest home-sales data. For once, there was some good news. But, of course, the report contained a lot of bad news, too. You can read it all here.

First, the good news: The sales of existing homes — which include single-family homes, townhouses, condominiums and co-ops — rose 2 percent in May, probably because buyers are finally responding to some of the lower prices now available.

This news isn’t entirely good. Home sales are still down 15.9 percent from the same time one year earlier.

And in even worse news for sellers, the national median housing price stood at $208,600 in May, down 6.3 percent a year ago, when that price was $222,700.

If you’re looking for evidence that the housing slump is nearing its end, you won’t find it in the Realtors’ report.

During the most recent housing boom — which ran on and off from the late 1990s through the mid-2000s — the National Association of Realtors set a membership record. The country had more real estate agents than ever.

Today, though, that’s no longer the case. Membership in the association is still above 1 million, but its numbers are shrinking slightly. And the operators of real estate schools — which help train future real estate agents — are seeing attendance at their facilities dropping.

J. Craig Anderson, in the Arizona Republic newspaper, covered this trend in a recent news story, which you can read here. As an example, he cites the Real Estate Learning Center in Mesa, where the number of students in each class has dropped from about 70 at the height of the real estate boom to 25 or so now.

Many other real estate schools across the country have shut down.

It’s just another example of how far-reaching the housing slump is, and how it impacts so many other businesses. Consider that home builders, mortgage lenders, real estate agents, landscapers, developers, commercial real estate brokerages and so many other industries rely on the housing market in large part for their own success.

This is why the current slump seems so painful. It’s not only hurting people who need to sell a house.