Taylor Repo Mobile Homes

Mobile homes are typically hard hit by hurricanes or even moderately strong winds. Much of the damage can be avoided, says Elliot Schrank, extension associate in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis. Schrank, a licensed architect, says that poor design and manufacturing practices are largely responsible for mobile homes' vulnerability to wind. During high winds, windows in both manufactured (mobile) and stick-built homes can break, either directly from the winds or from flying branches and other objects. The rash of winds inside a home puts tremendous upward pressure on roofs, amplified by the fast flow of debris. A roof that isn't well anchored can be violently tom off, which in turn often causes the home to collapse. That was the pattern during Hurricane Andrew last summer, which felled entire tracts of homes on inland areas of Florida. Roofs of stick-built homes that had been attached to the frame with nails rather than staples Pared the best during the hurri

Most home sellers resist auctioning their houses, considering it an act of desperation. Auctions can deliver a better bottom line than many people realize, however, and are often only a bit more costly than a good broker. The increasing number of mortgage companies auctioning off defaulted property is collecting an average of 90% to 100% of the appraised value of a home in some cases, as much as 105%. Moreover, depending on the form of the auction you choose, if you think the last bid you receive isn't high enough, you don't have to sell. "In a slow market, buyers are extremely fearful of paying too much," says Cynthia Logan, who has managed auctions for Alliance Mortgage Co. in Jacksonville. "So when they're going through traditional channels, they tend to make offers that are way too low, or they just walk away."  The competition of an auction, according to Logan, usually pushes the bidding up toward the fair price. Moreover, auctions virtually assu

Sales of existing homes slid 8.4% last year, the steepest fall in 17 years, but the market probably hit bottom in September and is entering a slow recovery that will last until June, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. One sign the market could revive this year is that the median home price, which had fallen for four months, was unchanged at $222,000 in December and was up 1.1% for all of 2006. And though it's still a buyer's market in most of the USA, the 7.3 month glut of homes for sale in November shrank to 6.8 months. "It looks like we are on the bottom, and we will be scraping the bottom as we move along," said David Lereah, the NAR's chief economist. "The worst is over for existing home sales, but I'm still troubled about new homes." The Commerce Department will release new home sales today. Those sales are expected to be down 17% for 2006 and to fall a further 9.7% this year, Lereah says. Not everyone is ready to herald the

The February report showed a 3.9% slump, bucking some earlier positive signals in the sector. Harsh winter weather may be the key culprit Those McMansions aren t moving like they used to. Wall Street was caught by surprise on Mar. 26 with the release of a Commerce Dept. report showing a 3.9% drop in U.S. new home sales in February, to a 0.848 million unit annual pace. And the back data for new home sales since November were revised considerably lower as well. The headline figure was well short of the 1.0 million median forecasts of economists revealed by Action Economics. The drop was all the more surprising given the positive signals on the housing sector seen earlier in March: the 3.9% pop in February existing home sales, and the surge in the National Association of Home Builders sentiment index from 35 to 39 in February, before dropping back to 36 in March. The 10 a.m. [Eastern Daylight Saving Time] release had an immediate impact on financial markets, as investors worried that the

A government report shows that sales fell to the slowest pace in 13 years, while durable goods dropped unexpectedly Reports released Mar. 26 show that two key segments of the U.S. economy housing and manufacturing continue to take it on the chin amid the ongoing U.S. slowdown. The reports helped send major equity indexes lower on Mar. 26, with the Dow Jones industrial average down nearly 1% in late morning trading. Optimism engendered by a better than expected report on February existing home sales released Mar. 24 was not supported by data on sales of newly built single-family dwellings during the month. According to a government report, U.S. new home sales fell 1.8% to a 590,000 unit annual rate in February, down from an upwardly revised 601,000 in January [up from 588,000 before] and 13 years low. Markets expected a drop in sales, to 579,000. New home sales were down 29.8% from last February. Good News for Housing? Sales were down in the Northeast and Midwest, but up in the South

Sales of existing homes picked up in 17 states in the first quarter compared with the previous one, pointing to more signs of life for the home market. Nationally, first-quarter sales of existing homes were down 3.2% from the last three months of 2008 and down 6.8% year-over-year, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday. But the improvement in 17 states is more evidence that the market is bottoming out, economists say. In the fourth quarter, only nine states showed better sales. Economists predict more states will show sales gains throughout the year, given still falling prices in many markets, low mortgage rates and some signs of improvement in the overall economy. “There are early signs of recovery in some states. They give me reason for optimism,” says Patrick Newport, economist at IHS Global Insight. He expects home sales to pick up nationwide in the later part of this year. The pace of the pickup this year may “surprise to the upside,” says Greg McBride,