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» and industrial real estate auction services throughout the region. The other office in the D.C. area is based in Gaithersburg, Maryland. According to the company announcement, more offices are planned to open shortly. The office opening comes as Tulsa-based AmeriBid expands its auction services to homeowners. Through the added service, homeowners can include their own properties in AmeriBid's monthly auctions, giving them the same opportunities leveraged by the company's corporate clients. "This is an exciting opportunity for homeowners as we offer a way to create excitement about the sale of a property that is unparalleled in the residential real estate market," said Stephen Karbelk, co-chairman and founder of AmeriBid. Fannie Mae Closes 2012 with Record Profits Fannie Mae ended 2012 with a bang. According to the D.C.-based GSE's final earnings report of the year, the company earned a quarterly net income of $7.6 billion in Q 4 and an annual net income of $17.2 billion throughout 2012. Both figures represent the largest quarterly and annual net incomes in the company's history. Fannie Mae credited last year's growth to improved credit results driven by a decline in serious delinquency rates, an increase in home prices, and higher sales prices on Fannie Maeowned properties. The company's agreements with Bank of America (BofA) to resolve repurchase claims—which saw BofA paying more than $10 billion—also played a role. "Solid business fundamentals, such as improving performance of our book of business and improvements in the housing market, led us to report the largest annual and quarterly net income in the company's history," said Susan McFarland, EVP and CFO for Fannie Mae. "We expect to remain profitable for the foreseeable future and return significant value to taxpayers." The company's secondary market share pulled back somewhat in Q 4 to 48 percent (compared with 54 percent in Q 4 2011 and 49 percent for all of 2012). Fannie Mae, headquartered in Washington, D.C., still remains the largest single issuer of singlefamily mortgage-related securities in the secondary market, however. On the multifamily side, the company owned or guaranteed approximately 22 percent of total outstanding debt as of December 31, 2012. The company also reported a decrease in its loan loss reserves to $62.6 billion (from $76.9 billion at the end of 2011). With delinquency rates improving, Fannie Mae expects the downward trend to continue for the near future, while profits should remain healthy. "Our financial results improved significantly in 2012 and we expect our earnings to remain strong over the next few years," said Timothy J. Mayopoulos, Fannie Mae president and CEO. "We have taken a number of actions since 2009 to manage our legacy book of business, build a healthy new book of business with responsible underwriting standards, price appropriately for risk, and reduce uncertainty by resolving outstanding issues." "These actions have helped to strengthen our financial performance and to support the housing recovery by enabling families to buy, refinance, or rent a home even during the housing crisis," he added. For the full year, Fannie Mae paid $11.6 billion in dividends to Treasury under the senior preferred stock purchase agreement between the two organizations. Factoring in the GSE's $4.2 billion payment made in the first quarter of 2013, Fannie Mae has paid Treasury $35.6 billion in dividends. CRE Prices Fall but Market Shows Signs of Strength Repeat sales in the commercial real estate (CRE) market in January came to just onethird of their December volume, according to CoStar's monthly Commercial Repeat Sale Indices. However, the Washington, D.C.-based analytics and marketing firm for the commercial real estate industry said this drop was to be expected and pointed to several positive signs in the sector. January's repeat sales volume was $3.1 billion, about a third of the previous month's volume. The decline was "expected as the flurry of year-end 2012 deal making subsided," CoStar said in its report. However, general sentiment in the commercial sector remains somewhat positive, according to CoStar, which noted that fewer discouraged sellers withdrew their properties from the market in January. The number of properties taken off the market by sellers in January was 12.1 percent fewer than the number recorded in January 2012. VISIT US ONLINE @ DSNEWS.COM Perhaps contributing to this decline, the gap between sellers' initial asking prices and final sales prices is narrowing, and time on market is decreasing. The price gap reduced by about 2.5 percent from January 2012 to January 2013, and time on market has decreased 2.7 percent from its most recent high in the second quarter of 2012. January's sale-to-askingprice ratio stood at 86.9 percent. CoStar also observed prices within the commercial repeat-sale sector and found mixed results in January. The firm's ValueWeighted Composite Index revealed a 0.7 percent increase in January, while the EqualWeighted Composite Index fell 2.9 percent over the month. Both indexes remain up over the year with the Value-Weighted index posting a 4.8 percent annual increase and the EqualWeighted index posting a 5.5 percent annual increase. Prices for investment-grade properties, when weighted for value, fell 1.7 percent in January. However, "[a] similar seasonal adjustment in pricing levels has been observed in the first months of the past several years," CoStar said. Also, despite the monthly loss, investment-grade property prices are about 16 percent above their 2009 low. STAT INSIGHT Percentage of monthly income dedicated to mortgage payments in Q4 2012 among homeowners in Washington, D.C. Source: Zillow 87

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