Dennis Norman - St Louis Real Estate News

Number of Equity-Rich St Louis Homeowners Increases In 3rd Quarter

By Dennis Norman, on November 12th, 2018

According to a report just released by ATTOM Data Solutions, 16.9% of the homeowners in St Louis with a mortgage are “equity-rich”, meaning their loan balance is 50% or less of their home’s estimated value. As the table below illustrates, this is an increase from 15.8% during the 2nd quarter as well as the 1st quarter of this year.

St Louis increase in equity surpassed the U.S. average but fell behind Kansas City and Chicago…

As the table below shows, during the past 2 years, the percentage of equity-rich homeowners in St Louis increased from 16.0% to 16.9%, an increase Continue Reading →

Number of Underwater St Louis Homeowners Falls To Lowest Level Since Last Year

By Dennis Norman, on November 10th, 2018

During the 3rd quarter of this year, 14.4% of the homeowners in St Louis with a mortgage were “seriously underwater”, meaning they owe at least 25 percent more than the estimated value of their home, according to a report just released by ATTOM Data Solutions. This is the lowest rate this year, down from 15.6% in the 2nd quarter and down from 14.7% in the first quarter of 2018. For the last quarter of 2017, St Louis homeowners that were seriously underwater had fallen to 13.8%.

Kansas City and Chicago have fared better over the past 5 years…

As the Continue Reading →

St. Louis’ 10 Fastest Selling Cities In October 2018

By Dennis Norman, on November 3rd, 2018

Not only did the beautiful fall weather of October draw St Louis area families to the popular apple and pumpkin picking festivities at Eckert’s Millstadt Farm, it also brought out home buyers putting Millstadt, IL at the top of our fastest SOLD cities in the St Louis metro area for October. As our table below shows (an exclusive feature of MORE™, REALTORS® feature), homes in Millstadt took just an average of 8 days to sell in October. The next nine cities on the list were all in Missouri with 5 of those in St Louis County, 2 in Jefferson County, Continue Reading →

New Home Prices Have Increased At Higher Rate Than Overall Housing Market Over Past 15 Years

By Dennis Norman, on November 2nd, 2018

I had lunch yesterday with a long-time friend who is a St Louis home-builder who shared with me the continually rising costs of construction he faces. Our conversation was consistent with conversations I’ve had with other builders as well, who cite a variety of things responsible for the ever-increasing costs of new home construction. The areas most often mentioned relate to regulatory and compliance issues, material prices as well as rising labor costs. According to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), the average cost to build a new home has inreased 56% over the past 15 years. According to Continue Reading →

Will Zillow Put Real Estate Agents Out of Business?

By Dennis Norman, on November 1st, 2018

It would be an understatement to say that Zillow® has many real estate agents nervous about their future. It’s not just Zillow® though, it’s Amazon, big banks, and dozens and dozens of new real estate start-ups and changing business models.

A true dysfunctional family…

The most common name that comes up in real estate agent circles when discussing the impact of the internet on the real estate profession topic is Zillow®, and usually in the context of “the enemy“, so to speak. It seems to me the biggest fear among agents about Zillow® is that they want to eliminate real Continue Reading →

Homeownership Rate In U.S. Hits Highest Rate Since 2014

By Dennis Norman, on October 31st, 2018

The homeownership rate in the U.S. hit 64.4 percent during the third quarter of this year, according to data just released from the Census Bureau. This is the highest rate of homeownership in the U.S. since the third quarter of 2014 when the rate was also 64.4%.

As the chart below shows, homeownership rates increased in the Northeast and West regions during the 3rd quarter, from a year ago, but declined slightly in the Midwest and the South.

Search St Louis Homes For Sale Search St Louis Upcoming OPEN HOUSES Homeownership Rates By U.S. Region – 3rd Quarter 2018 Continue Reading →

Real Estate Agents Are In The Goldilocks Zone – What Does This Mean For Their Future?

By Dennis Norman, on October 30th, 2018

Will technology send real estate agents into near extinction like it did with travel agents and may be doing with taxi-cab drivers today? This is a topic of frequent conversation in our industry, especially with dozens of new, well-funded startups, many with new and different business models, all gunning for a piece of the residential real estate industry.

I don’t like Kool-Aid® and don’t drink it..

Before I start, for the naysayers out there that may think since I’ve spent my entire adult life in real estate that, of course, I’m going to come to the conclusion that real estate Continue Reading →

St Louis Real Estate Market Holding Steady

By Dennis Norman, on October 23rd, 2018

In contrast to reports from around the country of a cooling housing market and even a possible bubble in some markets, the St Louis real estate market continues to hold steady. As our exclusive, STL Market Report for the St Louis 5-County core market below shows, during the past 12-months homes have sold at about the same pace as the prior 12-month period, prices are up a little over 5 percent and the supply, while up, is still at a rather low 3 months.

St Louis 5-County core market home sales and prices

(click on table for live Continue Reading →

Mortgage Bankers Forecast Five-Percent Mortgage Rates Next Year

By Dennis Norman, on October 20th, 2018

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), in their Mortgage Finance Forecast released this week predicted that interest rates on home mortgages will continue to rise this year and will hit 5% early next year. According to the report, the interest rate on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage is expected to come in at an average of 4.6% for the 3rd quarter, which just ended and then rise to an average of 4.9% during the last quarter of this year. Interest rates are then forecast to hit 5.0% during the 1st quarter of 2019, rise to 5.1% by the second quarter, then Continue Reading →

Are Homes Going To Become ATM’s Again?

By Dennis Norman, on October 18th, 2018

During the housing bubble that peaked around 2006 and then burst in 2008 one of the things that got many homeowners in trouble was using their home’s as ATM’s. They did this by using, in most cases, home-equity loans to take advantage of the equity they had in their homes to give them access to tax-free cash to make improvements on their home, pay for vacations, buy cars, boats, whatever. This was fine until the value of homes began declining which resulted in many of these homeowners becoming “underwater“ meaning they owed more on their homes than they were worth.

Continue Reading →

Homeowner’s Equity Hits Record High

By Dennis Norman, on October 17th, 2018

Homeowner’s equity (the difference between current home value and the total amount of debt against the home) has risen to a record level in the U.S. at $15.189 Trillion as of the 2nd quarter of this year, according to reports from the St Louis Fed Reserve. As the chart below illustrates, this level is even higher than the previous peak in 2006 at the tail-end of the housing bubble when equity was at $13.417 Trillion.

Homeowner’s Equity In Real Estate

(Click on chart for live, interactive chart with current data)

Search St Louis Homes For Sale Continue Reading →

St Louis Real Estate Market Update VIDEO – October 2018 – Home sales down but higher than 10 years prior to 2017

By Dennis Norman, on October 14th, 2018

St Louis home sales continue to lag a little behind last year, however, through the end of September, year-to-date St Louis home sales are higher than they were for the ten years prior to last year! In fact, the YTD total home sales of 21,043 for the St Louis 5-County core market, falls just 130 home sales short of the 21,173 homes sold at this time back in the banner year of 2006. For the St Louis area, YTD home sales through September for this year are just 5.8% below the all-time high in 2005 when there were 22,344 homes Continue Reading →

Home Affordability In St Louis Drops For All Counties In Third Quarter

By Dennis Norman, on October 4th, 2018

One of the nice things about St Louis has always been that it’s an affordable place to live and an affordable place to own a home. However, as St Louis home prices, and mortgage interest rates, continue to increase, home affordability in St Louis has declined.

As the table below, which is based on data from ATTOM Data Research, shows, all of the counties reported on in the State of Missouri saw home affordability decline during the 3rd quarter with the exception of Jackson County (Kansas City). All of the counties had a decline in home affordability from a year Continue Reading →

Sellers Have Reduced Prices on Nearly Half The Homes Currently For Sale

By Dennis Norman, on October 3rd, 2018

It may still be a seller’s market in many areas of St Louis, but, as our table below shows, nearly half (48%) of the active listings in the St Louis market have had at least one price reduction since coming on the market.

St Louis 5-County Core Market – Active Listing Data

(Click on table for current, live data)

Search St Louis Homes For Sale Search St Louis Upcoming OPEN HOUSES

The faster seller’s make a price adjustment the better…

Continue Reading →

The Most Expensive Homes For Sale In St Louis

By Dennis Norman, on September 30th, 2018

One of the great things about living in St Louis is it is a very affordable place to live, including when it comes to home ownership. Home affordability in St Louis is certainly much better than the coasts but also beats many, if not most, metro areas. Having said that, we do have our share of expensive homes though. For example, there are currently 322 $1,000,000+ homes and condos listed for sale in the St Louis 5-county core market (City of St Louis and Counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin). The most expensive St Louis home listed Continue Reading →

Are Homes Prices In St Louis Cooling?

By Dennis Norman, on September 26th, 2018

Yesterday, the latest S&P Corelogic Case-Shiller (the biggest name in national home price data) home price indices were released for July 2018 (their reports lag behind somewhat). Even though in their press release, S&P stated “Data released today for July 2018 shows that home prices continued their rise across the country over the last 12 months” however, the release went on to say point out, with regard to July’s increase in home prices, that is was “down from 6.2% in the previous month”. This prompted many news outlets to publish articles with headlines about home prices cooling, the market cooling, Continue Reading →

New Home Construction Trend In St Louis Flat Overall

By Dennis Norman, on September 21st, 2018

There were 4,642 new home building permits issued for the 7 counties in the St Louis area covered by the St Louis HBA during the 12-month period ended August 31, 2018, just 2 more (0.04%) than the 4,640 that were issued during the prior 12-month period, according to data from the St Louis HBA.

This would indicate that perhaps the new home building market has peaked for the time being which, given that this is the best report for this 12-month period since August 2007 when there were 5,706 permits issued in the prior 12 months, it’s not bad.

St Continue Reading →

St Louis Home Sales Trend Remains Flat While Prices Rise

By Dennis Norman, on September 20th, 2018

St Louis home sales remain consistent but fairly flat with 27,636 homes sold during the past 12 months, just slightly more than the 27,525 homes sold in the prior 12 month period, for the 5-County core St Louis market. As the table below shows, while home sales only increased by 0.40% during the period for the core St Louis market (city of St Louis and counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson, and Franklin) the median price of homes sold during the period increased 5.46% from a median price of $184,900 to $195,00. There is a currently a 2.55 month Continue Reading →

St Charles Makes Money Magazine’s 50 Best Places To Live In America List

By Dennis Norman, on September 19th, 2018

Money Magazine just released its “The Best Places To Live In America” list and St Charles came in at number 32 on the list and was one of only two cities in Missouri to make the list. The other was Lee’s Summit, in the Kansas City area, which came in at number 41 on the list.

In choosing the best cities to live in, Money Magazine looked at cities with populations of at least 50,000 people, then eliminated any place that had either a crime rate more than double the national crime risk rate, a median income of less than Continue Reading →

Mortgage Delinquency Rates Continue to Improve-St Louis Distressed Home Sales Falling

By Dennis Norman, on September 18th, 2018

Mortgage delinquency rates, the precursor to foreclosures, continue to fall as the real estate market continues to perform well. The 30-plus day mortgage delinquency rate for June 2018 fell to 4.3% of all outstanding mortgages down from 4.6% a year ago, according to a report just released by CoreLogic. Frank Nothaft, the Chief Economist for CoreLogic, attributed the good news to “A solid labor market” going on to say that June’s national unemployment rate of 4% was “the lowest for June in 18 years“.

St Louis distressed home sales falling quickly…

With the economy and real estate market doing so Continue Reading →

Today’s Headlines Say St. Louis Is “Among worst cities for buying a house” – True or not?

By Dennis Norman, on September 12th, 2018

Not that anyone that reads my articles on a regular basis needs any more proof of this, but there was yet another example today of just how “local” real estate is, and why it is so important to make sure you have good, accurate, up to date information before making real estate decisions. Today, the St Louis Business Journal published an article titled “St Louis among worst cities for buying a home” in which they cited a report from WalletHub that put St Louis at number 55 of 63 large cities on their list of best cities to buy a Continue Reading →

Who Wins When Buyer Buys From Listing Agent?

By Dennis Norman, on September 7th, 2018

One question that causes much debate among the real estate community and confusion among home buyers is “should you buy a home directly from the listing agent?”. Many home buyers feel like they will get a better deal buying directly from the listing agent, thinking that it will save the seller some money in the form of commission and that the savings will benefit them, the buyer. This premise is flawed though as it is extremely rare that this would result in any commission savings (for more info see an article I did on the topic a couple of years Continue Reading →

House Flipping In St Louis Drops Twenty-Three Percent In 2nd Quarter

By Dennis Norman, on September 6th, 2018

House flipping, something that has become quite popular among investors over the past few years and has even spawned several reality TV shows, continues to decline in terms of the number of flips. This is certainly not due to a lack of interest but instead a lack of opportunities. Many flipping opportunities are the result of foreclosures and with the mortgage delinquency rates continuing to improve resulting in declining foreclosure rates, the end result is few opportunities for investors to flip homes.

In St Louis, during the 2nd quarter of 2018, there were 835 homes flipped in the St Louis Continue Reading →

Report Today Says St Louis Housing Inventory Fell 26 Percent In Past Year…Maybe not though…

By Dennis Norman, on August 24th, 2018

This morning I noticed the St Louis Business Journal was reporting “In July, the local housing inventory fell to 2.6 months…That marked a 26 percent decrease since the same month last year“. This report immediately caused me some concern as I didn’t think the inventory was down nearly that much. Given that I personally spend a ton of time staying on top of local market data and our firm, MORE, REALTORS has even developed its own proprietary software to ensure that our agents and clients have the best and most accurate local housing market data, I would like to think Continue Reading →

New Home Sales In Midwest Up This Year Over 14 Percent From Same Time Last Year

By Dennis Norman, on August 23rd, 2018

The sale of new homes in the Midwest region of the U.S. is on the rise according to a report just released by the Census Bureau. In July, new homes in the Midwest sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 78,000 homes, an increase of 9.9% from June and an 18.2% increase from July 2017 when the rates were 66,000 homes. Year-to-date this year, though the end of July, there have been 50,000 actual new homes sold in the Midwest region, an increase of 14.2% from the same time last year when there had been 44,000 new homes sold Continue Reading →

Distressed Sale Opportunities For Investors Declined 30 Percent In Past 12-Months

By Dennis Norman, on August 22nd, 2018

As the interest in investing in real estate in St Louis continues to increase, whether to buy, fix and flip or to buy and hold for rental, the number of opportunities to do so continues to decline. The primary source of “deals” for investors is typically “distressed” sales; property that has been foreclosed on and being resold, short sales or property in poor condition needing work. However, as our chart for St Louis MSA below reveals, the number of distressed home sales in St Louis has been steadily declining over the past 5 years.

The chart shows both the number Continue Reading →

HUD Files Housing Discrimination Complaint Against Facebook

By Dennis Norman, on August 17th, 2018

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) just announced that they have filed a formal complaint against Facebook for violating the Federal Fair Housing Act by “allowing landlords and home sellers to use its advertising platform to engage in housing discrimination“.

Some of the ways HUD alleges that Facebook platform violates the Federal Fair Housing Act include:

display housing ads either only to men or women; not show ads to Facebook users interested in an “assistance dog,” “mobility scooter,” “accessibility” or “deaf culture”; not show ads to users whom Facebook categorizes as interested in “child care” or “parenting,” Continue Reading →

St Louis Real Estate Market Update VIDEO – August 2018

By Dennis Norman, on August 16th, 2018

While St Louis home sales are flat this year the overall market conditions remain good. The low inventory of homes for sale continues to benefit St Louis sellers! Find out more, as well as get information on some of St Louis’s best resources for home buyers and sellers in our just-released market [xyz-ips snippet=”Market-Update-Video–Inline-Link”] update video. [xyz-ips snippet=”Market-Update-Video-Package”] [xyz-ips snippet=”Seller-Resources—Listing-Targeted”]

Why Aren’t More Millennials Buying Homes?

By Dennis Norman, on August 14th, 2018

I may have the answer to the $64 question, why aren’t more millennials buying homes? The real estate industry spends a fair amount of time discussing the millennial generation trying to determine where they want to live, urban or suburban, and whether they want to own a home or are happier being a renter. I have found many answers are contained In the Census Bureau Report, “The Changing Economics and Demographics of Young Adulthood: 1975–2016“.

There are some fascinating facts in the report, many of which give a lot of insight into this generation as well as their housing needs Continue Reading →

St Louis Zip Codes Where Home Prices Have Increased The Most In Past 12 Months

By Dennis Norman, on August 11th, 2018

Home prices in the St Louis metro area increased at what is a pretty “normal” rate (historically speaking) of about 3.5% in the past year. However, as you hear me say often, all real estate is local, so the market varies significantly from neighborhood to neighborhood. For example, on our St Louis Median Home Price Change by Zip list (part of which is shown below), of the 101 zip codes shown, 87 had an increase in home prices in the past 12-months from the prior 12-months, 1 remained even, and 13 saw a decline in home prices. For the increases Continue Reading →