By Steve Cook, Rismedia
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While sales of distressed properties - foreclosures and short sales - have shrunk since the first of the year, a surge in sales of “normal” non-distressed properties has pushed total home sales through June 4.5 percent higher than last year even though buyers face tight credit and low inventories.
With attention focused on extraordinarily tight inventories that have restricted sales during the past six months, market share of non-distressed homes are at their highest level since August 2008, a sign of strengthening demand from buyers realizing their time has come to act before prices increase further due to a slowly improving employment picture and greater consumer confidence. During the January to June period, the number of non-distressed sales is up 15 percent over the same period last year, according to CoreLogic. The increase in non-distressed sales is strengthening prices. Excluding distressed sales, home prices nationwide increased on a year-over-year basis by 3.2 percent in June 2012 compared to June 2011. On a month-over-month basis excluding distressed sales, home prices increased 2.0 percent in June 2012 compared to May 2012, the fifth consecutive month-over-month increase., according to the National Association of REALTORS®. Both supply and demand are playing a role in the decline of distressed sales and the increase in normal sales. In June, the distressed share of sales fell to 21 percent, the lowest level in almost four years. The months’ supply of distressed properties has been steadily decreasing over the first half of the year and now stands below seven months, equaling the same level of the supply of active listings. Increased competition for the limited inventory of non-distressed property listings helped push the average home sales-to-listing price ratio to 95.6 percent in June, the highest in three years, according to the Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. HousingPulse reports that median time on market to sell a non-distressed listing fell sharply in June to 11.7 weeks, a drop of a full week from the May reading of 12.7 weeks. As recently as March, the non-distressed property time on market had been 14.0 weeks. The June 2012 time on market for non-distressed listings is the lowest in over two years and substantially below the June 2011 reading of 15.0 weeks. “Strong demand, particularly in areas of California, Arizona and Nevada, are pushing up home prices very quickly in the short-term. And because many of the home purchases in these areas are cash transactions, there appears to be less braking of prices by our current appraisal system than seen in other parts of the country,” notes Thomas Popik, research director for Campbell Surveys and chief analyst for HousingPulse. Demand for normal homes is increasing despite the fact that buyers face serious hurdles. |
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Showing posts with label housing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label housing. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
'Normal' Home Sales Soar Despite Obstacles
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Sacramento County Real Estate Update June-July 2012
Doug Reynolds, a Sacramento Area Realtor, reviews the latest market statistics for May 2012 in Sacramento County Real Estate. This month discussing how the inventory has hit a new all time, record low for the sacramento area. the shortage of homes for sale continues through the summer. Also, the median price stayed flat after going up four consecutive months. Feel free to call or email Doug if you'd like help with selling or buying real estate in the sacramento area. Also subscribe to his YouTube channel for the latest real estate info.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
May 2012 Housing Stats – Sacramento County
Sales volume picks up as lowest inventory in Sacramento Real Estate History continues to drive Market
The median home sales price stayed basically flat as it went from 169k to $168,750. The $200,000 - $249,999 price range still accounts for the majority of the 1,816 total sales this month (14.9% or 270 units), while homes under $100,000 totaled 293 (16.1%) units. Closed escrows from conventional financing (673 units or 34.4% of all sales) increased 6.1%, cash buyers decreased 1.5% (617 units) and FHA financing decreased slightly by 2.9% (515 or 26.3%). The median amount of Days On the Market decreased to 27.
Sales increased for the month to 1,816 units sold, up 11.2% from the 1,633 closed escrows in April. Year-to-year closed escrows were up 10.1% from the 1,650 units sold May 2011. Making up the closed escrows this month were 504 REOs (27.8%), 546 short sales (30.1%) and 766 conventional sales (42.2%). Compared with last month, REO sales are down 7.6%, short sales are down 1.3% and conventional sales up 7.1%.
The inventory is down to 0.8 months, setting a new historic low for the Sacramento Real Estate market. The low supply of homes continues to drive the market. When a home comes on the market that is priced well, shows good and marketed well, it is selling with multiple offers, typically above the list price. The buyer demand continues to remain high as cash buyers compete with home owners wanting to grab the incredible interest rates available.
clear skies,
Doug Reynolds
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
East Sacramento: McKinley Park, Fab 40's, River Park, East Sac, East Portal Park - Sales Data for May 2012
There were 26 homes sold in East Sacramento in the month of May, 2012. That is a slight increase from the 23 homes sold in the area in the month of April 2012 . Here are the addresses and specific information.
Currently there are: 40 Active listings, 6 Active short sale listings, 14 Contingent short sale listings, and 39 Pending Sales.
Currently there are: 40 Active listings, 6 Active short sale listings, 14 Contingent short sale listings, and 39 Pending Sales.
If you would like more information (pictures, listing history, what type of sales they were, etc.) feel free to call or email and I’d be happy to provide that for you. Call or email me if you are looking to buy or sell in the East Sacramento area.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Sacramento County Housing Statistics for March 2012
Prices Rise for Second Straight Month – Bottom of the Market has Passed
In the Sacramento Area, the median sales price of single family homes has rose for the second straight month. The median price for March 2012 was $165,900. Up from $160,000 in January 2012. The increase in price is due to the economics of Supply and Demand.
Low Supply: Currently, the amount of homes for sale on the market (inventory) is at 1.1 months. That means at the current rate of sales, if no new homes came on the market, we would sell out of homes in only 1.1 months. That is lowest amount of inventory EVER on record in the Sacramento Area. A “normal” or “balanced” market is considered to be around 5 months of inventory. The peak of the inventory was in September 2007 with 14.2 months of inventory. Since then, the banks have been more cautious about putting too many homes on the market at one time, short sales have been succeeding at a higher rate, many investors began purchasing properties at auction before they had a chance to come on the market and now some banks are even beginning to rent properties out and also sale in bulk to large investors where 500 homes are purchased at one time and never make it to the open market.
High Demand: Many investors and potential buyers have been sitting on the sidelines while prices where in a free fall a few years ago. Once interest rates reached the 4% range, many first time buyers got into the game and began purchasing. The investors saw the activity increasing and realized the bottom of the market was coming and are now writing all cash offers on many properties to either flip or hold and rent as investments for the long term. Currently, due to the low supply and high demand, most homes that hit the market are receiving multiple offers, all cash offers and offers above the list price. The demand has not been this high for the past 7 years. Because of that, many sellers are choosing now as a great time to put there house on the market as the Sacramento Market has shifted to a “Seller’s Market.”
clear skies,
Doug Reynolds
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Warren Buffett Is Betting on Housing
Posted By susanne On March 3, 2012 @ 12:01 am In Business Development,Business Outlook,Consumer News and Advice,Finance and Economy,Home Owner News,Real Estate,Real Estate News,Real Estate Trends,Today's Marketplace,Today's Top Story - Consumer |
From the Los Angeles Times
The U.S. housing market disappointed Warren Buffett last year, but he hasn’t given up hope.
Buffett said in his annual shareholder letter that he was “dead wrong” when he predicted last year that the rebound in U.S. home prices would begin within a year.
This year, though, he’s betting again that the housing market will recover, and for an interesting reason: hormones.
As Buffett explains it, the housing market is currently depressed because young Americans have stayed at home rather than going out and setting up their own households.
“People may postpone hitching up during uncertain times, but eventually hormones take over,” Buffett wrote in the letter to shareholders in his investment company Berkshire Hathaway. “And while ‘doubling-up’ may be the initial reaction of some during a recession, living with in-laws can quickly lose its allure.”
That is not the entirety of his argument. He also says that home builders are not creating enough new supply. As a result, the excess inventory that built up after the financial crisis is slowly disappearing, paving the way for new demand.
During an appearance on CNBC, Buffett said he would buy up millions of U.S. homes if it were possible.
Data out Monday seemed to support Buffett’s contention. The National Association of REALTORS® announced that the number of people buying used homes in January rose to a 21-month high.
clear skies,
Doug Reynolds
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Is Housing Bouncing Back?
By Neil Irwin, Washington Post
The deeply depressed housing sector finally seems to have found its bottom — and may even be starting to bounce back.
A wide range of housing indicators — construction, home sales, prices — have stabilized in the past few months, although they remain at historically very low levels. And it looks as if construction activity in particular will pick up in 2012.
The latest evidence of the momentum — new-housing starts for November — was released Tuesday. The surprising 9.3 percent gain bumped the rate of new-housing construction to its highest level in 19 months, to a rate of 685,000 new units a year. The number of building permits issued for new houses and apartments also rose, to 5.7 percent in November.
“The good news is that housing has switched from being a drag on overall growth, to modest positive contributions,” said Brian Bethune, chief economist of Alpha Macroeconomic Foresights.
Behind this improvement was a combination of powerful demographic trends, differences in the job and housing markets in various local economies, and the half-decade in which very few homes were built or renovated.
In normal times, about 1.2 million new households are created in the United States each year, because of rising population. That number falls during bad economic times as more young adults live with their parents, retirees move in with their children and immigration declines. But it doesn’t fall as dramatically as has home construction amid the housing bust and recession.
Housing starts peaked in January 2006, and for the past five years the United States has been building considerably fewer new houses each year than demographics would seem to demand — 554,000 units were started in 2009, for example, and 587,000 in 2010.
Part of that gap is attributable to the excess built during the housing bubble, when more houses went up than demographics would support. More than 2 million units were started in 2005 alone. With so many homes to fill, there has been little need for more.
But the construction boom was not uniform. While far too many houses were built in markets such as Miami, Las Vegas and Phoenix, other regions experienced only a moderate oversupply. And many of those other markets have seen improved job growth this year.
A house in Las Vegas isn’t much use for someone who has a new job in Dallas or Washington. So even as the housing-bubble cities are still hobbled with a glut of vacant homes, building activity is rising rapidly in some of the stronger local economies.
In the first 10 months of 2011, the number of permits for new-housing units rose 36 percent in the Los Angeles metropolitan area over the corresponding period in 2010. The gain was 31 percent in Dallas, 32 percent in Washington and 35 percent in San Francisco.
In some of the housing-bubble markets such as Phoenix and Riverside, Calif., there was little or no increase.
The strongest gains in housing activity in November, as in recent months, were in apartments and other buildings that contain more than five units. That reflects a shift away from home ownership toward renting.
Even after a 50 percent rise in multi-family housing starts this year, “we expect a similar pace of growth next year,” Bank of America-Merrill Lynch senior economist Michelle Meyer said in a research note. It has its roots in a shift toward renting among Americans buffeted by foreclosures, a weak job market and tight credit.
The rising demand for apartments has driven up rent prices. Nationwide, there was a 3.4 percent gain in rents over the past 12 months, according to Labor Department data, compared with a 2.4 percent rise in all consumer prices. Some individual markets saw much larger gains. And those higher rents are coaxing developers to see opportunity.
“We have been and expect to continue to be very active in all aspects of our investment activity,” Bryce Blair, chief executive of AvalonBay Communities, said in a conference call with analysts last month. The Arlington-based company owns about 50,000 housing units across the country and has $1 billion worth of development underway. Blair noted rising rents and the dearth of new-building projects.
It’s hard to know how much of that shift is by choice — people avoiding the risk of buying a house that could decline in value — and how much is driven by the difficulty in getting a mortgage loan. But the reasons don’t matter much for the broader U.S. economy. If the gains in new permits and housing starts keep up, they could put construction workers back on the job.
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