Looking for an older home? Centralia was named one of the 12 best places in the nation to find one by the magazine, “This Old House.”

Along with old houses, you’d really have to enjoy small town life to warm up to most places on the list. Among those identified were neighborhoods or towns in just about every region, from South Carolina and Texas to Pennsylvania, New York and Michigan. Albany, Ore., also made the list.

From the magazine: Centralia is located halfway between Portland and Seattle (both are about 90 minutes away) and is close to both Olympia and Tacoma. For those who live in Centralia's Edison District—adjacent to the revitalized historic downtown—movie theaters, antique shops, and the Olympic Club, a brick 1915 tavern, are a block away.

Close to Tacoma? I think of Puyallup or Gig Harbor as close to Tacoma, not a small railroad/logging town about an hour's drive south. Always interesting to see how national publications view our corner of the world.

More on Centralia from the magazine: Most homes date back to the Victorian era, including sturdy Queen Annes and Stick Victorians. Craftsmans, many with full-length columned front porches, are also easy to find. Homes in the Edison District range from $250,000 for an 1,800-square-foot Craftsman to $600,000 for a massive Queen Anne.

If you’re in search of old houses closer to home, there’s also a list of best places to buy in what the magazine considers the Northwest, which turns out to be a pretty broad swath that includes Northern California and Wyoming.

Here are the other Northwest locales on the regional list:
North End, Boise, Idaho
Eureka, Calif.
South Central, Helena, Montana
Rainsford Historic Distric, Cheyene, Wyo.
Casey-Shattuck, Juneau, Ala.

No-money-down mortgages, largely believed to be at the heart of today’s home-financing woes, are getting a new life, according to a Wall Street Journal story this week that focuses largely on the participation of new home builders in such programs.

Bellevue-based Quadrant Homes, which has several Pierce County projects, was mentioned for its $500 promotion: the company’s site says $500 gets you into a home, if only you can give up your latte habit.

Peter Orser, Quadrant president, was unavailable to comment today and his media representative said no one else from the company could comment. (Orser also was not quoted in the WSJ piece.)

So what are your thoughts on 100 percent mortgage financing? Are no-money-down mortgages an OK way to go? Can the housing market sustain itself without bringing in buyers who have little or no money to put down? Is it even realistic, given today’s housing prices, for first-time buyers to have a 10 percent or 20 percent down payment? (Pierce County’s median home price in May, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, was $259,739.)

Here’s more from the Wall Street Journal story.

The offers — including "100 percent financing" — are made possible due to down-payment assistance programs run by nonprofit organizations. These programs are funded largely by home builders and also by private homeowners desperate to sell. The seller-funded groups provide enough down-payment money to buyers that they can qualify for a mortgage backed by the Federal Housing Administration, which requires at least a 3 percent down payment.

Supporters of the down-payment programs say they help the FHA fulfill its goal of assisting first-time home buyers. But critics say the programs will burden the government agency, and taxpayers, with bad loans. The FHA, which essentially is filling the void left by the collapse of the subprime market, renewed a push to eliminate the programs this month, after warning that above-average default rates for seller-assisted down-payment programs will force the agency to request a government subsidy for the first time in its 74-year history. The agency says it will need $1.4 billion next year.

The FHA estimates that down payments provided by nonprofit groups account for 34 percent of all 200,000 loans backed by the FHA so far this year, up from 18 percent in all of 2003 and less than 2 percent in 2000. And the agency says that borrowers are two to three times as likely to default on their payments when they receive a down payment from a nonprofit.

You might notice something missing next time you do an online home search. A home listed through the Northwest Multiple Listing Service for which an offer has been made will no longer be viewable on public Web sites as it moves through the process, including a home inspection.

It used to be that such homes would continue to be publicly listed for a number of days and would be labeled “Active/STI” or something similar that indicated the home was spoken for and an inspection was underway. Brokers, agents and their customers, of course, will continue to see the status of a home that’s for sale, whether active, pending or sold.

The change, which went into effect this week, accomplishes a couple of things, said Dick Beeson, who is a Windermere broker and a director for the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. First, it clears up some statistics. Previously, homes that had an offer and were subject to inspection were counted in the active listings category, even though they were actually pending sales, Beeson said. (At least 75 percent of properties that receive an offer, become closed sales, he said.) And it provides a more clear explanation to home shoppers of the status of a sale.

So it seems for buyers, the change will declutter a home search of houses and condos that likely will be fully off the market in a matter of days. For sellers, it could mean fewer days of marketing should the sale fall through after inspection.

Gov. Chris Gregoire announced today plans to fine Countrywide Home Loans $1 million and revoke the mortgage company’s state license for what she said was predatory and discriminatory lending.

The state Department of Financial Institutions sent Countrywide a list of charges earlier this week as it continues its investigation, according to a release from the governor’s office. The Associated Press said Countrywide did not respond to a phone call earlier today for comment on the governor’s action.

In its investigation, the department examined hundreds of loan files and looked at the differing rates borrowers received, credit scores, loan types, borrower income and other factors. DFI says in its statement of charges that Countrywide sold less favorable loans to minority borrowers.

“That’s why we intend to bring the full weight of the state on Countrywide to rewrite home loans for minority borrowers who may have been misled into signing predatory mortgages,” the governor said in today’s release.

Gregoire’s announcement comes on the same day lawsuits were filed by attorneys general in California and Illinois alleging Countrywide used unfair practices and misleading advertising, according to The Associated Press. Also today, Countrywide shareholders approved the company’s takeover by Bank of America Corp., the AP reported.

Countrywide was among the many lenders dealing in mortgages known as subprime, loans sold to borrowers with shaky credit or other financial troubles. Many point to the proliferation of subprime lending as contributing to today’s weakened U.S. housing market.

A release from the governor’s office said the California-based company also will be required to pay more than $5 million in back assessments.

Home prices in the Seattle-Tacoma area declined year-over-year again in April, according to the widely followed S&P/Case-Shiller index. This drop is the fourth consecutive in the index for the area on top of a downward trend seen since last summer.

I don’t put a lot of stock in month-to-month numbers, because so often those changes can be chalked up to seasonal or other factors, but those stats show a slight increase from March to April of 0.7 percent. (Pierce County’s median home price in May was $259,739, a 7.6 percent drop from the year before, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.)

Nationally, the index didn’t look too rosy – all 20 metro areas that are tracked showed annual declines. (Most have steeper decreases than the Seattle-Tacoma area.) The Case-Shiller index is considered a strong indicator because it ties today’s prices on a typical house to the price in Jan. 2000. The index shows that prices in the Seattle-Tacoma area, since then, have gained 79.6 percent.

Here are year-over-year changes in the Seattle-Tacoma area in recent months, according to the index:

April: - 4.9 percent
March: -4.4 percent
February: -2.7 percent
January: - 1.3 percent
December: +0.5 percent
November:+ 1.8 percent
October: +3.3 percent
September:+ 4.7 percent
August: +5.7 percent
July: +6.9 percent

OK, so it’s not all that warm out, but summer is officially here and it got me thinking this week about swimming pools and whether or not they add to a home’s allure. Not many Northwest homes have built-in pools compared to some other parts of the country, but they’re definitely out there and I’ve heard that pools can be more of a liability (homeowners worry about the safety of their kids and grandkids) than a benefit. On the other hand, swimming and parties around the pool can be a great way to spend the warmest months of the year.

Any thoughts? Would you be drawn to a home with a nice swimming pool?

A related side note: I noticed in a recent search that a lot of listings that mention a swimming pool play up the public pool near the house rather than a private home pool. So some people marketing homes for sale think people here like to swim.

Here’s a way to let the market dictate the price on a house: Lower it in regular increments until someone bites. I ran across a listing in Sumer that promises to discount the price of a two-bedroom house by $1,000 a week, like an auction in reverse.

As of today, the list price was $190,999 – $9,000 lower than when it was put on the market about two months ago, according to Keller Williams listing agent Leslie Williams. How low does he expect it to go? Williams said that’s up to his client but that she knows the average time on market in the Sumner area is four months.

In a softer market, Williams said sellers need to think outside the box. A few weeks after putting the property up for sale, the owner was considering a $5,000 to $10,000 price drop. Williams said he wanted, instead, to try a marketing tactic that would stand out from a crowd of price-reduced listings.

“What we were seeing before the reductions, we were seeing a drop in interest in the property. The flurry of interest comes, and it’s gone after a week or two,” he said.

Traffic, he said, has since picked up on the property’s Web listing. The house, which isn’t quite 1,000 square feet, was built in 1955. Williams is pitching it as ideal for an investor. The marketing remarks mention work needed, but Williams said the fixes are minor, such as a cracked window in the laundry room.

“I think it’s just a matter of time,” he said.

What do you think? Anyone else seen something similar? Or any other creative marketing tactics in recent weeks?

I often read, and have posted items, on kitchen remodels being among the best for getting a return on your investment. But what if you put in ultra-high-end appliances? And, here's a question raised by an LA Time story I was reading this morning: Have kitchens, with their granite counters and shiny ranges, become home-bound status symbols?

Here's an excerpt of the LA Times story:

The endurance of the showroom-quality kitchen indicates that homeowners still regard this once-utilitarian part of the house to be an emblem of status, as significant to their self-image as the car they drive. Plus, real estate agents and (surprise) kitchen designers will tell you that a camera-ready kitchen is key to a home's resale value.

Research data on consumer preferences released by the American Institute of Architects in February indicated "kitchens continue to be the dominant design area within the home, with dedicated computer work areas and cellphone and personal digital assistant recharging stations becoming an emerging trend."

For those waiting for the kitchen to come back down to Earth, there was a glimmer of hope: The study noted a slight retreat from top-of-the-line appliances.

One factor that may speed the change in mind-set: the growing interest in green building and renovation, with an emphasis on energy efficiency, using renewable resources and generally eschewing the kind of excess that has been a hallmark of many recent remodels.

Another bit I noticed in the story that I've read and seen on designer/cooking shows: the home kitchens of professional chefs are often small. They prize efficiency over grandeur. So what about you? Small or big kitchens? And take a moment to dream on this Friday and share one or two items you'd have put in your no-limits kitchen remodel. I'll start things off: temperature-controlled wine storage. And maybe a fancy waterproof drop-down computer screen and a keyboard easily put away in a drawer that I could use to look up and read recipes while cooking.

Along with gas and food prices, rates on 30-year mortgages are on the rise. With Fed chief Ben Bernanke voicing concerns about inflation this month, it should come as no surprise that mortgage rates would move north, at least a little bit.

Any thoughts on where mortgage rates will go in the weeks ahead -- down, steady or up?

Here's what the Associated Press reported today:

Rates on 30-year mortgages kept surging this week, rising to the highest level in nearly nine months, reflecting more concerns about what the Federal Reserve will do to combat a growing inflation threat.

Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, reported Thursday that 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.42 percent this week. That was up sharply from 6.32 percent last week.

It was the highest level for 30-year mortgages since they averaged 6.42 percent for the week of Sept. 27 and marked the fourth straight week that they have been above 6 percent.

Frank Nothaft, chief economist at Freddie Mac, said the increased concerns about inflation were fueled by reports in the past week showing that both consumer prices and wholesale prices rose by significant amounts in May. This spurred further increases in the futures market where investors place bets on future Fed actions. That market is pointing to a Fed rate increase in September.

More information about the marketing history of a home listed through the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, which includes the vast majority of homes for sale in Pierce County, is scheduled to start coming your way in July. The broker-owned listing service has decided to allow real estate brokerages to display on their Web sites the number of days a home has been on the market.

Such transparency pulls back the curtain on data previously available only to real estate agents, brokers and their customers. It also marks a change in philosophy from guarding data only accessed by hiring an agent or broker to trying to leverage it as a means to build stronger relationship with consumers.

Tom Hurdelbrink, CEO of the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, said the listing service has been talking for a long time about how to adapt to the comfort level today’s real estate consumers have with the Internet.

While Hurdelbrink said some other listing services around the country also give consumers access to the length of time on the market, the Northwest MLS will be among a minority providing the statistics.

“It’s another way to offer content to the consumer that may entice or compel the shopper to call the real estate broker to talk about their serious interest as a buyer or seller,” he said.

Much like retailers, Hurdelbrink said he thinks real estate companies will evolve toward a strong presence on both the Internet and at the street level.

“We’re figuring out how that can work in parity,” he said. “That is hard, particularly for people like me who are over 50 who didn’t grow up surfing on the web. I thought eight-track tapes were radical. Ask anyone in their 20s what an eight-track tape is today.”

Hurdelbrink says he’s aware that releasing the information could bring criticism from home builders and sellers, but he thinks the statistics made available in July will ultimately be considered as standard as what’s available to consumers today, such as price, location and the MLS listing number.

The official rule change occurs July 3, but Hurdelbrink said it will likely be mid-July before you’ll see it pop up at your favorite real estate Web site as the MLS continues to work out some technical kinks. Redfin already posts days-on-market stats on its Web site. Hurdelbrink said the listing service decided against penalizing Redfin for using the statistics since the rule change was in the works.

One final note: The number of days on market for what’s sold and listed won’t be available in the monthly MLS statistical release in the near future, so I won’t be able to report the numbers countywide when I report the median home price, sales activity, etc. Hurdelbrink said providing those numbers requires a different setup than getting them to brokerages.

In reading the Washington Post credit crisis package I passed along yesterday, I was reminded of a great interactive map that shows the location of nonprime, or the more risky, mortgages.

This mapping tool comes courtesy of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and breaks down loans by subprime and Alt-A. You can use it a few different ways. By color: Click on one of a dozen buttons on the side to reveal the share of adjustable-rate loans or the number of loans per 1,000 households and the country will be shaded state by state, showing where the most and least are. By number: Click on Washington and all the stats for the state pop up.

There's also a zip code field so you can get even more local with your search.

Find the map here.

If you’re interested in getting a better handle on how the national housing credit crisis came to be check out the three-part series that started yesterday at the Washington Post. The stories trace the boom, bust and aftermath of mortgage financing. (Only the first two are up, stay tuned tomorrow for the last of the three.)

I like how the first story breaks down the concept of a mortgage-backed security, because it can be confusing to understand and difficult to explain yet rests at the core of how the business of home lending got so big and fell so fast.

Here’s a bit of a history lesson, from the first story:

In 1970, when demand for mortgage money threatened to outstrip supply, the government hit on a new idea for getting more money to borrowers: Buy the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages from the thrifts, guarantee them against defaults, and pool thousands of the mortgages to be sold as a bond to investors, who would get a stream of payments from the homeowners. In turn, the thrifts would get immediate cash to lend to more home buyers.

Wall Street, which would broker the deals and collect fees, saw the pools of mortgages as a new opportunity for profit. But the business did not get big until the 1980s … First Boston, came up with a new idea with a mouthful of a name: the collateralized mortgage obligation, or CMO.

Much of the great stuff in a series like this is in the details: lavish parties thrown by delusionally successful lenders, huge sums lost when not successful, math-wonk immigrants of China and Russia employed to build new math models to price securities, the secret war room set up by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, where he quizzed his board in Socratic style to determine how the Fed should respond to the unfolding credit crisis.

I ran across a home price comparison index by Coldwell Banker and plugged in some numbers to see how May’s median price of $259,739 in Pierce County stacks up against markets around the country. (The index measures what the market value of your home would fetch in the cities you select.)

You get more for your money in Austin, Texas, and Milwaukee, Wis. And less in Denver and Salt Lake City.

Here’s a sampling of cities and prices:

Milwaukee: $224,718
Pensacola: $166,350
Salt Lake City: $283,086
Austin:$ 169,268
Denver: $277,249
Anchorage: $236,392
Burlington, VT: $256,821
Bethesda, MD: $656,644
Boston: $954,322
San Diego: $429,007
Albuquerque, NM: $218,881
Charlotte, NC: $178,023

Go here to run your own comparisons.

The latest foreclosure stats show Washington state holding its middle-of-the-pack place in the nation, ranked No. 27 for foreclosure filings in May by RealtyTrac, which tracks default and auction notices and bank repossessions.

Washington saw a 17.6 percent rise in foreclosure filings compared to the same month in 2007, according to the report. Nationwide, RealtyTrac said filings rose year-over-year for the 29th consecutive month and in May record the highest foreclosure-filing rate since the report began in 2005. One in every 483 households received a foreclosure filing during the month, according to RealtyTrac.

UPDATE
Pierce County was No. 2 in the state for foreclosure filings, according to RealtyTrac, with one for every 574 households. Interestingly, though, that number was a 6 percent decrease from the same month in 2007. Cowlitz County came in No. 1.

A new state law intended to protect homeowners from mortgage fraud has local real estate agents and brokers saying they may no longer be able to help sellers at risk of foreclosure.

The law, called the “distressed property law,” went into effect today and prohibits a practice known as equity skimming – a kind of fraud that masquerades as assisting a homeowner unable to make mortgage payments but instead takes what equity there is and leaves the homeowner in even worse financial shape.

Distressed homeowners, according to the legislation, are those in various stages of losing a home, from foreclosure to contemplating not making a mortgage or property tax payment. And a professional who discusses such a property with its owner could be considered “a distressed home consultant,” which includes real estate agents and brokers.

Not only must such a consultant act in the best interest of the homeowner – a potential conflict if an agent is representing a buyer – but the consultant also has a fiduciary duty that carries a fine of up to $100,000.

To cover their bases, real estate companies have worked up additional paperwork for home sellers to determine whether or not they are distressed. Some are recommending that active listing agreements signed before today be resigned.

The law likely will chill buyer’s interest in foreclosures, which in the past have drawn bargain hunters, said Chris Nye, president of MLS4owners.com. The University Place company sent 500 emails to its sellers informing them of the new law and the additional paperwork and asking if any of them are distressed.

Similar laws in other states have exempted real estate agents, said Nye, who wonders why such an exclusion didn’t make it into this law.

“I know in talking to a lot of agents and brokers, they want to know how it happened,” he said.

Phil Harlan, Washington Realtors’ immediate past legislative steering chairman, said today that the trade group was aware of the legislation, which was requested by the Attorney General’s office. Harlan said he could not explain why agents and brokers are not exempt but said the law was passed with some unintended consequences.

The association has trained more than 1,500 real estate brokers on the law.

“It’s unfortunate it affected the normal real estate transaction,” Harlan said. “We’re going to have input with the Attorney General as much as we can to make the necessary adjustments to of course keep whole the integrity of the bill, to make sure the consumer is protected, and to get some of these conflicts with the regular real estate transaction resolved.”

Kristin Alexander, spokeswoman for the Attorney General's office, said changes in the law will be requested in the next session to address agent and broker concerns.

"We’ll be meeting with Realtors in July to work on a draft," she said.

Windermere agent Andrew Welch said limits imposed by the law will mean homeowners who could sell and avoid foreclosure won’t get the help they need as agents avoid the liability now tied to a potentially distressed property.

“Just writing an offer on a house that’s going to be foreclosed on can be seen as not acting in the best interest of a distressed homeowner. It’s a messed up law,” he said.

The month of May provided a little bit of price-change variety around Pierce County, giving a few areas year-over-year median price gains while the countywide number fell as it has for eight of the last nine months. The median home price for the county in May was $259,739 – a 7.6 percent drop from the same month in 2007, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

Here’s a look at how 16 areas around the county fared, with May’s median price and the year-over-year change. Areas with fewer than 10 sales are excluded. (Next month I’ll provide a year-to-date perspective on prices to gauge how the first six months of 2008 is shaping up compared to the first half of last year.)

If you want some sales activity context with your price numbers, check out this post from earlier in the week. For example, each of the areas with median year-over-year price increases – Roy, Eatonville, Lakewood and DuPont -- were among the half with the fewest home sales for the month.

Rents at large Pierce and South King county apartment complexes were up year-over-year 4.3 percent to 7.8 percent in the first three months of the year, according to Hendricks & Partners, an Arizona apartment real estate firm.

Home prices, on the other hand, have been on the decline for several months – the Pierce County median home price fell 7.6 percent in May to $259,739 compared to the same month in 2007, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. (On a statistical side note: The average rather than median Pierce County home price decline in May was 7.1 percent, but we use median prices -- meaning half sold for more and half for less -- because the median is considered statistically superior for minimizing the swaying of prices by one specific price category.)

Here’s how first-quarter average rents and increases in Pierce and South King counties broke down, along with a couple others around the region. These are for buildings with 40 or more units.

A Washington Post story today details the ways in which the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development contributed to national home lending problems. In particular, the piece digs into mistakes made by HUD, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, including to require the companies to get more low-income families into home loans.

Here's some of what went wrong, according to the Washington Post story:

The agency neglected to examine whether borrowers could make the payments on the loans that Freddie and Fannie classified as affordable. From 2004 to 2006, the two purchased $434 billion in securities backed by subprime loans, creating a market for more such lending. Subprime loans are targeted toward borrowers with poor credit, and they generally carry higher interest rates than conventional loans.

Today, 3 million to 4 million families are expected to lose their homes to foreclosure because they cannot afford their high-interest subprime loans. Lower-income and minority home buyers -- those who were supposed to benefit from HUD's ations -- are falling into default at a rate at least three times that of other borrowers.

Find the whole story here.

Home sales activity remained sluggish in May in every part of Pierce County. Some were worse or better than others, however.

Countywide, sales of houses and condos in May were off by 42.1 percent compared to the same month in 2007, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. On one end of the spectrum, Parkland took top honors for the smallest decline – sales there declined year over year by just 6 percent. DuPont followed up with a 27.9 percent decrease. Most everywhere else hovered around the countywide number except Fife, where sales dropped by 70.6 percent.

Here’s a look at sales stats in 17 areas around Pierce County, as provided by the Northwest MLS.

If you’re wondering why your city or neighborhood isn’t listed in this county breakdown, see my earlier post here on why some are included and others are missing.

And look for another post later in the week detailing housing prices around the county.

The latest foreclosure report from the Mortgage Bankers Association created a stir this week, but I wanted to get the local stats before I passed along the info.

Here’s the big perspective from The New York Times:

About one in 11 American mortgages were past due or in foreclosure at the end of March, according to a report released Thursday, a figure that is rising fast as home prices fall and the job market weakens.

The first three months of 2008 marked the worst quarter for American homeowners in nearly three decades, according to the report, issued by the Mortgage Bankers Association. The rate of new foreclosures and past-due payments surged to their highest level since 1979, when the group first started collecting the data.

All told, about 8.8 percent of home loans were past due or in foreclosure, or about 4.8 million loans. That is up from 7.9 percent at the end of December. (About a third of American homeowners do not have mortgages.)

Delinquency and foreclosure rates started rising from historically low levels in late 2006 and have picked up speed in nearly every quarter since. Analysts say at first past due mortgages represented mostly high-risk loans made to borrowers with blemished, or subprime, credit. Now, as the economy has weakened and home prices have fallen in many parts of the country, homeowners with better loans are also falling behind.

By the three major measures highlighted in the quarterly report, Washington is faring far better than the rest of the country.

In the first three months of 2008, here’s how mortgage delinquency rates broke down in the states with the highest rates, Washington and everywhere else. These are for all mortgages on properties consisting of one to four units, except those insured by the Federal Housing Administration.
Mississippi: 9.4 percent
Michigan: 7.84 percent
Georgia: 7.36 percent
Washington: 2.98 percent
U.S.: 6.35 percent

As measured by the number of loans in foreclosure:
Florida: 4.6 percent
Nevada: 4.12 percent
Ohio: 4.1 percent
Washington: 0.89 percent
U.S.: 2.47 percent

As measured by loans starting the foreclosure process:
Nevada: 1.93 percent
Florida: 1.86 percent
California: 1.59 percent
Washington: 0.45 percent
U.S.: 0.99 percent

On the price front at least, Pierce County's housing market appears to still be on the slowdown track. The newest stats released today by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service showed the county's median home price in May at $259,739, a 7.6 percent decline from the same month a year ago.

Here's a look at other nearby counties -- all of which also saw year-over-year price drops:

King: -2.9 percent
Thurston: -0.6 percent
Kitsap: -14.3 percent
Snohomish: -6.7 percent

And here's how year-over-year prices have been trending for the previous year and a half, according to MLS numbers:

2008
May: -7.8 percent
April: -4.3 percent
March: - 6.02 percent
February: -7.8 percent
January: -2.5 percent

2007
December: +.01 percent
November: -4.4 percent
October: -1.4 percent
September: -2.4 percent
August: + 4.4 percent
July: +3.3 percent
June: +0.82 percent
May: +6.9 percent
April: +3.2 percent
March: +5.8 percent
February: +12.5 percent
January: +5.3 percent

A new report ranks metro areas by their level of statistical overvaluation, putting Tacoma at No. 27 with the value of a house, excluding condos, for the first quarter of the year pegged at $278,800. (Pierce County’s median home price in April, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, was $263,051.)

While the ranking, which is out of 330 metro areas, seems high, the report says Tacoma falls in the category of “moderately overvalued” and “not so high as to be at risk of substantial price decline.” Global Insight, which put together the report, labels Tacoma 24.5 percent overvalued.

Other Northwest markets didn’t fare as well. Anywhere over 35 percent, according to Global Insight, runs “a risk of substantial price declines” of 10 percent or greater.

Here’s a look at other Northwest markets, their rankings and by what percentage Global Insight considers each overvalued.

2. Bend, Ore. 49.5 percent
3. Longview 40.2 percent
4. Wenatchee 40 percent
6. Bellingham 38 percent
7. Portland 36.2 percent
11. Eugene, Ore. 32.8 percent
12. Medford, Ore. 31.9 percent
16. Salem, Ore. 28.9 percent
20. Olympia 26.4 percent
27. Tacoma 24.5 percent
28. Seattle 22.8 percent

Global Insight uses various factors to determine under- and overvaluation in each area, including median home price, household income, the density of households and mortgage rates.

The report, which I ran across this morning at the Seattle Bubble blog, also provides a map that color codes markets around the country and their stats by rolling your cursor over each.

This housing crisis story has many of the ingredients of a typical foreclosure: an owner with poor health, a difficult repair issue (mold contamination), a house that won't sell and a housing market that's seen better days. In this case it's the mansion of TV star Ed McMahon, which has been on the market for two years.

Here's what the LA Times reported this morning:

McMahon, the longtime sidekick to Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show," defaulted on $4.8 million in mortgage loans with a unit of Countrywide Financial Corp., which filed a notice of default in March, according to ForeclosureRadar, a company that sells default data pulled from public records.

The 85-year-old pitchman for various products, including American Family Publishers, is the highest-profile person to be caught up in the nationwide real estate downturn and mortgage crunch.

"He's not alone. There are plenty of people affected by the weak economy, bad housing market or bad health," McMahon's spokesman, Howard Bragman, said late Tuesday.

Bragman said McMahon fell and broke his neck about 18 months ago and has been unable to work since.

"The ideal situation would be that he would be healthy and able to earn a living to pay for his house," Bragman said.

The six-bedroom, five-bath home on Crest Court is listed for sale at $6.25 million, said real estate agent Alex Davis of Alex Davis Estates, who has the listing. It's been on the market for two years, he said.

=> Read more!

As if car dealers weren't having a hard enough time with rising gas prices and various other economic issues. I missed this story while off, but the New York Times reported last week that the drying up of home equity lines is yet another source of trouble for new car sales. And like mortgage lenders, those who put together auto loans are making it harder for borrowers to qualify.

From the story, which I spotted at the LA Times real estate blog:

"Auto lenders and banks, closing their wallets, have prevented hundreds of thousands of consumers from obtaining the financing for a car. Home equity loans, which had been used in at least one of every nine deals, when lenders were more generous, are no longer a source of easy money for many prospective buyers. And used-car prices have fallen nearly 6 percent as repossessed cars and gas-guzzling trucks and S.U.V.’s flood auction lots."

Check out the graphic to the left of the story. When you click on it, you get a top 10 list of states where home equity lines were most regularly used to buy new cars. Washington doesn't fall on the list but the top stat is pretty amazing: Last year, 29.8 percent of new cars purchased in California were bought using home equity lines.

Many people who contemplate a remodel wonder at some point: How much of the money I put in will I get out when I sell? And what about the cost in the first place -- am I paying too much?

A local remodeler forwarded me a link to some stats that can help to answer some of these questions, at least on a regional basis. Remodeling magazine has put together a comprehensive list of typical home renovation projects, what they cost, how much of that will be recouped and how each compares to the national average.

Projects in the Seattle-Tacoma area that return more than 100 percent of what's invested, along with the average cost, according to the magazine: minor kitchen remodel ($22,698), wood deck addition ($12,812), wood window replacement ($13,120), upscale window replacements in vinyl ($15,743) and wood ($19,608).

If you're all about the return when remodeling, you might want to think again about projects where less than 70 percent of the cost is recouped: a back-up power generator, a sunroom addition and a home office remodel.

One other point worth noting: All but one of the 29 projects listed brings a better return in the Seattle-Tacoma area than the national average.

Find the whole list of projects and stats here.