New York state will offer first-time homebuyers a new tax credit worth one-fifth of their yearly mortgage interest costs, building on the U.S. government’s program to spur the housing market, Governor David Paterson said on Monday.

The state’s mortgage agency, which helps low- and moderate-income individuals buy homes, will run the new Mortgage Credit Certificate program. The tax credit will only be offered to people who qualify under the agency’s income and purchase price limits, the Democratic governor said in a statement. People who get their mortgage from the state agency will not qualify.

 The federal $8,000 tax credit for people who are buying their first home expires on November 30.
New York’s metropolitan housing market has held up better during the downturn than others around the nation.
The New York index is still more than 73 percent higher when compared to January 2000, according to Standard & Poor’s/S&P Case-Shiller Home Price indices for May, although it has fallen nearly 20 percent from the June 2006 peak.
New York is the first state to offer this kind of tax credit, a Paterson spokesman said, though other states offer extra help to home buyers. For example, California in March began offering a $10,000 credit for new home purchases.
A New York homeowner paying 5.5 percent interest on a $150,000 mortgage would pay about $8,200 in interest in the first year, according to Paterson’s estimates. The new state tax credit would be worth $1,640, he said.
The remaining 80 percent of the mortgage interest will still qualify as an itemized tax deduction on federal returns.
New York will use about $80 million of its private activity bond program to pay for $20 million of the certificates.
The Internal Revenue Service sets limits on how much tax-free debt states can sell for private activities.

 http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Housing/idUSTRE5794HT20090810

ROYAL Bank of Scotland has promised customers six months grace if they struggle to meet mortgage repayments.

 The NatWest owner said it wanted to “lift the pressure” on homeowners. A spokesman said: “We want to reassure customers.”
The Government last week urged lenders to grant a minimum three months breathing space.
RBS sold a near 60 per cent stake in the business to the Government last Friday - in exchange for a £20billion bailout.

www.thesun.co.uk

Home sales in the Orlando market jumped nearly 48 percent, but values fell by nearly 40 percent, according to the March report from the Orlando Regional Realtor Association.

Association members reported 1,653 existing home sales in March, compared with 1,120 in the same month a year prior. Realtors also put 2,956 homes under contract last month, a far cry from March 2008’s 1,679.

The median price of all Orlando homes resales fell 37.7 percent from $217,000 in March 2008 to $137,000 last month. The area’s average interest rate fell to a record low 4.67 percent.

Association members also reported 4,906 pending sales — considered a leading indicator of future sales — in March, more than double March 2009’s 2,398.

March home resales in the Orlando area — Lake, Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties — jumped nearly 58 percent, from 1,354 homes last year to 2,139 homes this year.

http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/stories/2009/04/13/daily7.html

Single-family house prices in the state dropped about 17.1 percent in February compared to the same month in 2008, making it the fifth consecutive month that median prices have dropped by double-digit margins, according to the Warren Group, publisher of the Commercial Record.
“We didn’t see such a period of price slumps during Connecticut’s last housing downturn in the early 1990s,” said Timothy M. Warren Jr. in a statement. Warren is the chief executive of the Warren Group. “Prices won’t level off until sales activity picks up substantially for several months straight.”
The local results are mixed and the most promising news could be in Meriden.

http://www.myrecordjournal.com/site/tab1.cfm?newsid=20289419&BRD=2755&PAG=461&dept_id=592709&rfi=6

There was something that always bothered Rene Galvin when she walked in the front door of her new condo - an eye-watering, rotten egg smell that clung to the four walls and everything contained within them, from the furniture to her carpet and clothes.
She could never quite put her finger on the cause of the foul odor that seemed to pervade every pore. “I’d just stand there, look around and say to myself: ‘One day, I’ll find out whatever it is that died inside these walls’,” she says.
But there were further problems to come; mirrors that corroded around the edges, drains that rusted on the baths, pitted faucets, the television, computer, dishwasher, coffee pot, telephones, and air-conditioning system that all inexplicably broke down. Even the treasured gold-dipped necklace she wore around her neck turned black. Then there were the headaches, throat and sinus troubles.
“I had no idea what was going on. I thought ‘Boy, the Florida air sure is bad’,” she says with a wry laugh.
Humour, though, is not something that comes easily these days when she talks about her $500,000 home in Bonita Springs, Florida, that now sits empty after it was found to contain contaminated drywall from China.
The discovery of sulfur-emitting compounds within the imported construction materials has sparked a national investigation, numerous lawsuits, and a scandal that is feared to have affected as many as 100,000 homes, a majority so far in Florida. Reparations could run into the billions of dollars.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0404/p99s01-usgn.html

The number of people struggling to pay their mortgage is growing by almost 740 a day, raising fears of another surge in repossessions
Another 68,000 homebuyers fell into arrears in the final three months of 2008, according to grim data from the Financial Services Authority. It took the total to almost 377,000 - a 31% leap in 12 months. The average debt has also risen almost 20% to £5,473.
Repossessions actually dipped slightly in the quarter to 13,028 as lenders bowed to Government pressure to make it the last resort. But the 46,750 total for last year - 128 a day - was still up 68% on 2007.

Adam Sampson, of housing charity Shelter, urged the FSA to force lenders to give more help to struggling families.
“With tens of thousands of families living in the shadow of repossession, the FSA must ensure that lenders treat struggling borrowers fairly,” he said. “The rise in arrears and repossessions has been fuelled by irresponsible lending.
“The FSA and Government must re-write the rule book to ensure the days of feckless lending are never repeated.”
Housing Minister Margaret Beckett said: “We are determined to do everything possible to ensure repossession is always a last resort, and have taken decisive action to help households facing difficulties right now.
“As well as agreeing a three-month minimum period before lenders seek to repossess, we have put in place more free debt and legal advice, and have increased support to help people pay their mortgage if they lose their job.”

This was found: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/city-news/2009/03/18/repossession-fears-grow-as-740-more-people-a-day-can-t-pay-their-mortgages-115875-21207351/

More than 60,000 homeowners are forced to sell up each year to pay for a place in a care home, according to a leading charity.
The figure has been rising fast because of the growing numbers of elderly Britons and the fact that many of those entering old age bought homes during the property booms of the past four decades.
However, an ever-increasing share of the wealth they hoped to leave to their families is being seized by the state to pay for their care in later life.
Last year half of the cost of care for the elderly - £6billion - was taken from the pockets of the middle classes who own their own homes or who have savings.
The 60,000 figure was made public yesterday by the charity Counsel and Care. It is to put forward plans for easing the plight of those who fail the state means test and so have to pay the £500-a-week plus costs of a care home place for themselves.
Counsel and Care’s estimate follows figures put forward by the House of Commons library, which suggested at the weekend that 45,000 people a year sell their homes to pay care home bills, a rise of 5,000 since 2003.
The charity’s estimate is closest to the 70,000 a year level that is widely accepted among advice and pressure groups and local authorities

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1152423/60-000-elderly-year-forced-councils-sell-homes-pay-care.html

Commercial real estate prices in the U.S. dropped by almost 15 percent in 2008, more than home prices, with fourth-quarter depreciation the greatest in the national apartment market, Moody’s Investors Service said in a report.

The price decline eliminated the gains seen in 2006 and 2007 and returned values to 2005 levels, according to the Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Indices. Prices fell 2.2 percent in December from November, said New York-based Moody’s.

Commercial values are now down more than 16 percent from their peak in October 2007, said Moody’s. The deepening recession is causing tenants to cut jobs and vacate space, bringing down building incomes, while the credit freeze is making it difficult to finance property purchases.

“The commercial real estate market has followed the larger economy into a downturn that is likely to last through 2009 and possibly into 2010,” Prudential Real Estate Investors said in its quarterly outlook in January. “With unemployment rising, consumer spending falling and home prices dropping, the recession will impact all sectors of the real estate market.”

Commercial real estate prices fell more than home prices last year. The median price of a U.S. home declined 12 percent to $180,100 in the fourth quarter from a year earlier and sales of properties with mortgages in default accounted for 45 percent of all transactions, according to the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors.

HOME repossessions are soaring in the credit crunch according to a shock new report — with one desperate family forced to live in a pigeon shed.
The Council Of Mortgage Lenders said there were 27,100 repossessions in 2007 and warned that this year there could be a 65 per cent rise to 45,000.
One family hit by the crisis are the Galloways. They had their three- bedroom semi repossessed in June when they fell behind on repayments.
Checkout operator Debbie, 31, and husband Philip, 42, have six children aged between four and 14.
While the cash-strapped couple sleep in a relative’s pigeon shed the children are having to live with another member of the family.
Distraught Philip says: “We worked hard and did our best to buy a house, to get on the property ladder and have something for our kids. “We tried to pay and tried to get help to sort it out when things got tough . . . but we were too late. No one would help us.”

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/real_life/article1519444.ece

SCROUNGING squatters have set up home in two seven-storey mansions on London’s Park Lane — worth a total of £30MILLION.
The 20 crusties, some of whom sneaked in through an open basement door, are living rent-free yards from Madonna’s luxury pad.
They spend their time strumming guitars while letting three huge dogs foul the rooms.
The scruffy squatters boasted last night of the “magical” views of Hyde Park.
And the scroungers, whose presence in the exclusive area has horrified posh locals, asked: “Why would we live anywhere else?”
The hippies — aged 21 to 45 — moved into the properties, with a combined value of £30million, two months ago.
Since then they have rubbed shoulders with the mega-rich residents of the capital’s most exclusive street, lined with flash car dealerships including Rolls-Royce and Aston Martin.
Their seven-storey paradises share a clear view over the park, where the group walk their smelly dogs.
And one squatter, 27-year-old Martin, from Cape Town, South Africa, said: “The view at sunset over Hyde Park is just magic — especially from the penthouse. I really love it here.”
The loafers spend their time strumming guitars and creating “art” in the 12,000sq ft, 12-room homes.
They claim the properties — previously used as offices — had stood empty for about two years.

And they are able to live there because squatting is NOT illegal if entry to an empty property is not forced and there is no criminal damage caused by the squatters.
Owners must obtain court orders to boot out unwanted occupants.
The freehold to both properties is owned by the Duke of Westminster via his company Grosvenor (Mayfair) Estate.
There are also a small number of leaseholds, controlled by property investment firms based in Guernsey and the British Virgin Islands.
No legal action had been taken to remove the squatters last night. The owners only learned they had moved in when they were told by The Sun.
Inside, the magnificent homes are now a clutter of amateur art, acoustic guitars and overflowing ashtrays.
More dishevelled-looking squatters arrive virtually every day. Some stay weeks while others drift off quickly. The sole price of admission is an electric heater to warm the vast rooms — as there is no hot water or central heating.
Three huge dogs roam freely about the houses, leaving droppings everywhere.
Martin brazenly asked The Sun to urge its readers to send money and furniture.
He said: “A lot of those here have to get by on Jobseeker’s Allowance. There was no furniture, so we had to bring our own. If anyone could send us money or furniture it would be great.
“We’ve no TV and make our own music to keep ourselves entertained.”
He added: “There’s quite a large squatters community in London and we always pass on information. We’d noticed these houses had been empty for about two years. We got in through an open basement door.”

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2158953.ece