Closing Chicago Real Estate

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FHA delays implementation of new lending rules relating to condominium purchases. Saw this nugget changing the effective date to November 2, 2009 from October 1, 2009. Mike Wasserman had a good initial post on the rule changes. Short-term the delay likely helps some of the newer condo developments since the new rules require a higher percentage of units to be sold before the building is FHA elgible. Yet for the older buildings, I’m ready to kiss that right-of-first-refusal restriction goodbye.

Housing trouble down at Millikin in Decatur.  The small liberal arts school was charged with violating the Fair Housing Act for refusing to allow a blind student live in the dorms with her guide dog. It’s just an allegation at this point but I was suprised to see Millikin mentioned in a HUD press release.

Finally an interesting panoply of housng facts released by the Census Bureau regarding the state of U.S. housing…

Housing

• California homeowners with mortgages ($2,384) had the highest median housing costs in the nation. New Jersey had the second highest median housing cost ($2,360).  Hawaii ($2,265) and the District of Columbia ($2,218) followed, but were not significantly different from each other.  Rounding out the top six were Connecticut ($2,108) and Massachusetts ($2,105), which also were not significantly different from each other.
  

• Median selected monthly housing costs for homeowners with one or more mortgages, after adjusting for inflation, rose between 2007 and 2008 for nine states and declined for eight states. Five states that experienced increases were in the West (Hawaii, Montana, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming), three were in the Northeast (Connecticut, Maryland, and Pennsylvania), and one was in the South (Mississippi).
  

• Five states that experienced declines were in the South (Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia) and three were in the Midwest (Michigan, Missouri, and Ohio). The average decrease in the median selected monthly housing costs for homeowners with mortgages in the United States was 0.3 percent between 2007 and 2008.
  

• The percent change in median home values decreased in the United States (-2.0 percent) and in 22 states between 2007 and 2008 – five in the Northeast (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, and New Hampshire); four in the South (Florida, Maryland, West Virginia, and Georgia); eight in the Midwest (Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois); and five in the West (Nevada, California, Arizona, Hawaii, and Washington). Although the rate of decline was not significantly different from each other, two states showed larger percentage declines than the other 48 states and the District of Columbia: Nevada (16.0 percent) and California (15.5 percent). Florida (8.6 percent) ranked third. (See: subject table S2506)
  

• States that experienced increases were Texas, Utah, Wyoming, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Of those states, no one state had a rate of increase that was significantly higher than the other six.

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