Friday, August 5, 2011

Housing News Digest August 5

Innovation on display at Parade of Homes
Homebuilding has slumped in recent years, but enthusiasm on the part of builders and other housing industry members to showcase their latest products remains in full force.

They’ll be on display Friday through Aug. 21 during the 57th annual Parade of Homes, which is sponsored by the Housing and Building Association of Colorado Springs and several other businesses and organizations.

Faber: Brace for a Global 'Reboot' and a War
Markets could rebound after Thursday's global market sell-off, but investors should see any bounce as a selling opportunity, as the world economy rolls towards total collapse, Mark Faber, editor and publisher of the Boom, Doom and Gloom Report, told CNBC Friday.

Fannie Mae seeks $5.1 billion more from taxpayers

WASHINGTON - Mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae said it would ask for an additional $5.1 billion from taxpayers as a weaker housing market causes continued losses on loans made prior to 2009.

The largest U.S. residential mortgage funds provider on Friday also reported a second-quarter net loss attributable to common shareholders of $5.2 billion, or 90 cents per share.

County property value comes down nearly $10 billion
About $10 billion in Pitkin County property value, or 24 percent, vanished between mid-2008 and mid-2010, according to numbers disclosed this week by the county assessor’s office.

The numbers, which total the most recent assessments all of the county’s 22,787 taxable properties, shows $26.96 billion in local real estate value. That’s down from the $36 billion calculated in 2010.

Colorado's economy in a nutshell

The state's economy is normally similar to the rest of the country, but today it varies in some aspects.

"Jobs still remain stagnant," 9NEWS anchor Gregg Moss said. "There are about 230,000 people in our state looking for work right now."

Though that number seems large, in comparison to the rest of the country, it's relatively low.

Nonetheless, job growth is still moving along slowly, with the construction industry being the slowest to recover, according to economists. However, it differentiates when it comes to manufacturing, which is making a comeback.