US housing sales near bottom -Freddie Mac official
04.18.09, 05:06 PM EDT
USA/HOUSING (URGENT):US housing sales near bottom -Freddie Mac official
NASHVILLE, Tenn (Reuters) - U.S. housing sales are near a bottom, and a third of sales are now of foreclosed properties, the chief economist of Freddie Mac, Frank Nothaft, said on Saturday.
But Nothaft, speaking on a panel at a conference in Nashville, Tennessee, also said there were delinquency risks ahead. Unemployment is the main trigger for prime borrowers becoming delinquent and house price declines add to foreclosure risk, he said.
Nothaft said loan modifications in private-label securities are key to foreclosure reduction.
He noted that Federal Housing Administration lending is up sharply, with FHA loans at the largest share of the U.S. housing market since 1942, and mortgage rates are at a 50-year low.
Freddie Mac is the second largest provider of home financing in the United States.
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