Groping Toward a Housing Recovery

By , on June 28th, 2011

Last week I got to hear a presentation by Brendan Lowney of Economic Advisors, aptly titled “Groping Toward a Housing Recovery“, which I think is a perfect way of describing our current housing market, so perfect, I borrowed it for the title of this article. Mr. Lowney began his presentation with a very sobering statement, saying “it’s really hard to overestimate the severity of the downturn that we’re in. This is much worse than anything we saw in the ’70s or the early ’80s, if people remember, and it’s really akin in many ways to the Great Depression, and within Continue Reading →

Industry expert says it will take five years to absorb existing home inventory

By , on June 17th, 2011

Simple economics tells us that when supply exceeds demand prices suffer, just as we have seen in the housing market over the past three-plus years. A report by Brendan Lowney, a macroeconomist with Forest Economic Advisors (FEA) estimates that an excess home inventory of 2.5 million homes exist at this time. He says that this oversupply has put downward pressure on home prices, which in turn has caused a variety of undesirable effects, such as pushing more home owners “under water” which, in turn, causes even more defaults, thereby further increasing the oversupply.

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Harvard University Report Paints Bleak Picture of Housing Market; Present and Future

By , on June 8th, 2011

The “State of the Nation’s Housing“ Report for 2011 by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University does not paint a very pretty picture of the housing market, nor does it give us a whole lot to look forward to with regard to the near-term future of the U.S. housing market.

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2010 Census data disappointing for St. Louis; what is effect on the St. Louis Real Estate market?

By , on February 25th, 2011

It’s hard to miss the fact that the US Census Bureau just released some of the results of the 2010 census for our area.  It’s been all over the media about St. Charles County’s population surpassing the City of St. Louis and moving it into the spot of the third largest county in the State.

Being the data junkie I’ve become I decided to tear into the numbers and see how the 2010 data compared with the 2000 data to see what changes have taken place in the last decade and see what I could glean from the data to Continue Reading →

Has The Rate of Home Ownership Dropped to an All-Time Low?

By , on December 31st, 2010

As 2010 quickly comes to an end I sat here early this morning pondering the real estate market and reading reports on the housing industry. One thing that caught my attention was an article titled “The Mortgage Interest Deduction and Negative Equity” by Ted Gayer, the co-director of economic studies at the Brookings Institute (and occasional contributor to this blog). Ted’s article made some interesting points related to the mortgage interest deduction, negative equity and home-ownership rates in the U.S.

In his article Ted states “It seems semantically incorrect to call someone who owes more on an asset than it’s Continue Reading →

Report shows home prices up modestly over last year

By , on August 31st, 2010

Dennis Norman

This morning S&P/Case-Shiller Index report for the 2nd quarter of 2010 was released showing that the home prices improved slightly over a year ago in 17 of the 20 Metro Area’s their reports cover.

The Case-Shiller Home Prices Indices showed an increase of 4.4 percent in home prices in 2nd quarter after a decline of 2.8 percent in the first quarter. As of the end of the 2nd quarter U.S. home prices are, on average, up 3.6 percent from the year before.

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Housing Market Outlook and Forecast

By , on July 29th, 2010

Dennis Norman

This week I attended an event at the St. Louis Association of REALTORS® in which Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist for the National Association of REALTORS® was the featured speaker and gave his take on the housing market as well as his housing market outlook.

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Homeownership Rate in U.S. Hits 10 Year Low

By , on April 29th, 2010

Dennis Norman

According to a report issued by the U.S. Census Bureau earlier this week, the percentage of Americans that own a home in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2010 dropped to 67.1 percent, the lowest rate of homeownership since the same quarter of 2000. The homeownership rate for 4th quarter 2009 was 67.2 percent, the low for 2009.

REGIONAL HOMEOWNERSHIP:

The Midwest Region has the highest rate of homeownership, as of the 1st quarter of 2010, at 70.9 percent with the South region not far behind at 69.2 percent. The Northeast homeownership rate was 64.4 Continue Reading →

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