By Dennis Norman, on October 19th, 2015 The St Louis Real estate market continues to out perform last year! However, as we head into winter, home prices in all five primary counties of the St Louis market are trending downward somewhat. However, as I’ve said so many times, real estate is very local so, as I would expect, some local markets are out performing others and home prices are trending upward.
So, if you are a homeowner, how do you know if now is a good time to sell? Well, if the supply of homes for sale in your market is low now could be a Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on October 16th, 2015 St Louis Foreclosures spiked during the 3rd quarter of this year with all of the counties in Missouri that are in the St Louis MSA seeing an increase of double digits in foreclosure activity from a year ago, according to a report just released by RealtyTrac. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on October 14th, 2015 My, how fast things change! Nine days ago I wrote about a bad piece of legislation St Louis Councilman O’Mara had proposed with regard to the licensing of landlords and then, two days later, updated the article with the good news that the bill was voted down. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on October 12th, 2015 If you live in Crestwood, Glendale, Warson Woods or Rock Hill and have considered selling your home, now is the time! With less than a 2 month supply of homes for sale, these four St Louis communities are definitely seller’s markets and now would be the time to list your home for sale. In addition to those 4 areas, as the list below reveals, there are 17 other St Louis neighborhoods that are also very attractive seller’s markets, each with less than a 3 month supply of homes currently listed for sale. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on October 9th, 2015 No, in spite of the fact this is October, this article is not about Halloween nor the zombies associated with it, instead, it’s about vacant homes that have delinquent mortgages but have not yet been foreclosed upon yet, which the industry has applied the term of “zombie” to. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on October 8th, 2015 Since the real estate market bubble burst in 2008, the number of foreclosed homes that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has had to manage and sell to investors and new home owners has increased significantly, averaging around 100,000 homes sold per year and hitting a peak of 111,416 HUD homes sold during fiscal year 2013. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on October 7th, 2015 Where are the buyers markets in St Louis? You cannot determine the health of a real estate market with just one piece of data, however, a good indicator of a potential buyers market would be areas with a high supply of homes for supply. Note that I said supply and not number. This is important, as some areas, such as Chesterfield for example, may have what seems like a large number of homes currently for sale, but given the size of the market and number of sales, it could still well be a sellers market. The supply of homes for sale on the other hand, takes into account the number of active listings as well as the rate of home sales and then determines how many months it would take to “sell out” of homes on the market if no new listings came on the market. A supply of around 4 -5 months has historically been pretty typical. The list below, which is from our real-time data that you won’t find anywhere else and is always up to date, shows the cities within St Louis with the highest supply of homes for sale based upon the current sales rate thus indicating a slow market with too much supply and very possible some good buying opportunities. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on October 5th, 2015 Last April I wrote an article about a bill in St Louis County introduced by Councilman Michael O’Mara which me, and a whole lot of other people and groups with interest in preserving private property rights, thought would trample on those rights. Fortunately, as I later reported, the St Louis County Council chose not to move forward with the bill at that time. However, St Louis County Councilman Michael O’Mara is back at it with a new proposed ordinance, Bill No. 204, which is pretty much the same as last years version. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on September 30th, 2015 St Louis home prices have made a strong recovery since bottoming out in 2011 as a result of the housing market bubble bursting in 2008. In fact, for the 5-county St Louis area I often focus on (the city of St Louis and counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin) home prices have increased 27 percent to a median price of $168,313 after hitting a post-bubble low of $132,500 in 2011. In fact, as my chart below shows, the median 5-county home price for 2015 has topped the peak price of $160,000 at the height of the market in 2007 by over 5 percent. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on September 29th, 2015 The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced today that they had reached an agreement with Eagle Bank and Trust Company to resolve allegations that “Eagle Bank and Trust Company (Eagle Bank) engaged in a pattern or practice of “redlining” predominantly African-American neighborhoods in and around St. Louis.” “Redlining” is defined by the DOJ as “the discriminatory practice by banks or other financial institutions to deny or avoid providing credit services to a consumer because of the racial demographics of the neighborhood in which the consumer lives.” Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on September 27th, 2015 If you live in Missouri you are probably aware of the fact that, within our state, is the New Madrid fault, a 150-mile long fault that covers portions of five states, including the New Madrid are of Missouri. The New Madrid fault zone was the location of three (or some say four) of the largest earthquakes ever recorded on this continent, reaching a magnitude as high as 7.0 – 7.5. These massive earthquakes occurred at the end of 1811 and beginning of 1812. What you may not know, is the impact an earthquake in New Madrid may have on your Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on September 25th, 2015 New home sales in the U.S. in August sold at the highest annual rate since February of 2008, according to a report just released by the U.S. Commerce Department. New homes sold in August at a seasonally-adjusted, annual-rate, of 552,000 homes, an increase of 5.7 percent from the month before an an increase of 21.6 percent from August 2014 when new homes sold at an annual rate of 454,000 homes. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on September 24th, 2015 St Louis distressed home sales share of the St Louis real estate market continues to decline minimizing the negative effect on home prices caused by distressed home sales. In August, distressed home sales, primarily consisting of foreclosures and REO’s (bank owned properties) at this point as short sales have fallen to the point to be statistically insignificant, accounted for just 6 percent of the overall home sales in the St Louis metro area, according to a report just released this morning by RealtyTrac. This is a decline of over 50 percent (56.3%) from a year ago when distressed home sales accounted for 13.7 percent of total home sales in St Louis. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on September 23rd, 2015 The St Louis Real Estate market is still doing well! However, some cities, like Valley Park for example, that were strong sellers markets not that long ago have now become more of a buyer’s market and other cities have flipped the other direction. To find out which neighborhoods are buyers markets, which are sellers markets, what home prices are doing and a whole lot more, check out our newly released 5-minute, market video update for September 2015, below. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on September 21st, 2015 There were 2,370 existing homes sold in St Louis during July (in the 5-county core market) an increase of 1.5 percent from August 2014 when there were 2,335 homes sold. August home sales were down 16.9% from the month before as were St Louis home prices which fell from a median of $183,779 in July to $178,500 in August. The St Louis core market consists of the city of St Louis and the counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on September 17th, 2015 St Louis Foreclosures in August decreased slightly from the month before (1.51%) however increased over 140% from August 2014, according to a report released today by RealtyTrac. According to the report, there were 1,176 foreclosure filings in the St Louis metro area in August 2015 which equates to 1 in every 1,043 housing units in the metro area. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on September 16th, 2015 There were 123,546 St Louis homeowners with negative equity, or in a seriously underwater condition on their mortgage meaning they owe more than the current value of their home, in the St Louis MSA during the 2nd quarter of 2015 according to the most recent data by RealtyTrac. This works out to 17 percent of all St Louis metro area homeowners with a mortgage being underwater on their mortgage which is an improvement from 21 percent just 2 quarters prior. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on September 14th, 2015 Many St Louis area cities and towns continue to experience a low supply of homes for sale making it a competitive market for buyers in those areas. In fact, as of today, there are 8 cities in the St Louis area with just a two-month or less supply of homes listed for sale! Rock Hill at the top of the list with Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on September 10th, 2015 On October 3rd some new regulations with regard to home mortgages and loan closings will go into effect that have the mortgage and real estate industry in a little bit of a panic. As a result of passage of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act there is a major overhaul to the lending industry in the works. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on September 9th, 2015 Homes in St Louis (the 5-county core market) sold for 98.1 percent of the current asking price in August down only slightly from the peak of 98.3 percent in May, according to MORE, REALTORS. As the chart below shows, the gap between the ratio of sale price to current list price and sale price to the original list price widened a little in August, but the gap between the two ratios is less than at the same time in the prior few years. St Louis homes sold for 96.7 percent of the original listing price in August, down from the peak of 97.3% in May and June. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on September 4th, 2015 It seems when we think of natural disasters and property damage, most people think of hurricanes and coastal areas which would be true and would certainly not apply to Missouri however, Missouri has threats to property from natural disasters as well. In fact, according to RealtyTrac’s annual U.S. Natural Disaster Housing Risk Report, while Missouri does not have any counties that fall in the “Very High Risk” category when it comes to risk to housing from natural disasters, Missouri does have three counties that are in the “High Risk” category two of which, Jasper and Newton, are in the Joplin area in the southwest portion of the state and the third, Madison, is in the southeast area of Missouri. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on August 31st, 2015 New home construction activity in St Louis during July showed mixed results around the St Louis area. For the five-county core St Louis market that I focus on (city of St. Louis and counties of St Louis, St Charles, Franklin and Jefferson) permits issued for new homes during July slipped 2.7% to 322 from 331 the year before. The decline was concentrated in just two counties however, albeit the two largest ones, St Louis and St Charles. St Charles county saw permits fall to 142 for July, down almost 25 percent from July 2014 when there were 189 permits issued Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on August 25th, 2015 New home sales in the midwest declined in July to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 54,000 homes, a decline of 6.9 percent from the month before when sales were at a rate of 58,000 homes, according to a report just released by the U.S. Commerce Department. The new home sales rate for the midwest in July 2015 was exactly the same as July 2014. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on August 24th, 2015 Home sales in St Louis, for the 5-county core market, in July totaled 3,226 sales, an increase of 16.8 percent from July 2014 when there were 2,762 homes sold. The St Louis core market consists of the city of St Louis and the counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin. While all of the 5 counties included in the core saw an increase in home sales from a year ago, the results, as the charts and individual results below show, varied widely by county. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on August 20th, 2015 St Louis foreclosure activity increased in July 32.23 percent from the month before to 1,194 foreclosures actions in the St Louis metro area, or a rate of one foreclosure activity for every 1,028 homes, according to the latest data from RealtyTrac. As the table below shows, the foreclosure activity in July 2015 was up almost 150 percent from July 2014, however, when we look at the 12-month rolling average, we can see that the activity has risen about 6 percent from a year ago.
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By Dennis Norman, on August 19th, 2015 Over half of the St Louis Foreclosures (bank and government owned) sold in July were sold for cash, according to the latest data from MORE, REALTORS. In July 2015, there were a total of 323 foreclosure sales in the 5-county core St Louis market with 179 of them, or 55.4%, being cash sales. As the table below shows, the number of foreclosure sales in St Louis in July 2015 was down 12.5% from July 2014 while the median sales price was up 1.8%.
There were a total of 3,754 home sales in St Louis in July 2015, an increase of Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on August 17th, 2015 The St Louis Real Estate market continues to be strong! Homes are selling quick in St. Louis and at prices that show solid appreciation over the past couple of years. Get the details on the current St Louis real estate market, as well as where in St Louis are the hottest markets as well as the coldest ones, and much more in our newly released, 5-minute, market video update for August 2015, below. Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on August 14th, 2015 I often find myself very surprised to hear how a consumer chose the real estate agent they hired to represent them and hear things such as “I work with him…”, “She is a friend of….”, “He is my cousin…” etc. When I hear these responses several things come to mind: Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on August 13th, 2015 The Federal Reserve Bank of New York just released it’s Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit for the 2nd quarter of 2015 in which some encouraging facts were revealed with regard to the home mortgage market, including: Continue Reading →
By Dennis Norman, on August 12th, 2015 In case you are concerned the real estate industry is not subject to enough regulation, do not let your heart be troubled as new regulations imposed by the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which was signed into law back in 2010, affecting home mortgages go into effect October 3, 2015. Continue Reading →
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