Mortgage Minute Real Estate Update
Mortgage Minute Update:
1. The U.S. housing market will weaken further, but the sharpest decline is over as inventories of unsold homes decrease, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Monday. "This is not the bottom, but the worst is behind us," Greenspan said at a conference organized by financial services firm Charles Schwab. A decline in U.S. home sales and construction has contributed to an overall slowing of economic growth to 1.6 percent in third quarter. But Greenspan said housing market activity is likely no longer to be a drag on overall economic growth as unsold inventories clear out and stabilize against sales levels.
2. Following a correction in home sales and prices in 2006, existing-home sales are expected to "coast" at roughly the same level next year, although there will be some additional decline in the new-home market, according to a forecast released today at the National Association of Realtors Conference & Expo in New Orleans. "Overall home-price gains will be modest," said David Lereah, NAR's chief economist, in a statement, and sellers are adjusting to the market transition. "Home sellers are becoming realistic about current market conditions and are now offering more competitive pricing, in addition to some incentives or concessions -- especially to help first-time buyers," he said.
3. Existing-home sales, expected to fall 8.6 percent to 6.47 million this year -- the third-best performance on record -- are projected to be essentially even in 2007 with a 0.6 percent decline to 6.43 million. New-home sales, likely to drop 16.8 percent to 1.07 million in 2006, are forecast to fall another 8.7 percent next year to 975,000, largely due to a significant reduction in construction by builders. Total housing starts this year will probably fall 10.6 percent to 1.85 million units, and then decline another 11.8 percent to 1.63 million in 2007.
III. Zillo: Home Values in Top U.S. Metropolitan Areas Continue to Rise
Most homeowners in the top U.S. metropolitan areas are still seeing a healthy year-over-year appreciation on their home values, despite a recent cooling throughout the nation, according to a series of home value reports from Zillow.com™. This appreciation is measured by the Zindex™ home value indicator, which measures the value of all homes in an area (not just those that sold). Despite a decline in values in many regions over the past quarter, home values are up by 4.8 percent year-over-year in the 36 regions studied by Zillow. The exception to this trend was in the Boston, Hartford, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Sacramento and San Diego metropolitan areas, which actually experienced a slight year-over-year decline.
“4.8 percent is considered healthy appreciation growth by most standards, but is a dramatic difference from the double-digit year-over-year growth homeowners in many areas of the country came to expect over the past several years,” said Stan Humphries, director of advanced analytics for Zillow.com. “By comparison, year-over-year growth in these areas in Q2 was 9.2 percent so markets are clearly losing some wind in their sails. Moreover, sequential, quarter-over-quarter Zindex growth for the top 36 markets was only 2.4 percent for the third quarter, down somewhat from the 2.7 percent increase we saw between the first and second quarters of the year.”
Top Metropolitan Areas: Of the 36 U.S. metropolitan markets covered this quarter by Zillow, the three most expensive are all located in California (San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego metro areas), while the three least expensive are all located in the South (Oklahoma City, San Antonio and Memphis metro areas). The Jacksonville metropolitan area led the pack for the fastest appreciating, at 19.1 percent year-over-year, while Hartford metro was the slowest appreciating—actually depreciating -3.7 percent relative to the third quarter of 2005.
Real Estate by Region: The South showed the strongest third quarter performance, turning in a 10.7 percent year-over-year increase, while the West proved to have the most expensive real estate, with a Zindex $395,902. The weakest growth was seen in the Northeast, where the Zindex actually depreciated -1.8 percent year-over-year, fueled by a significant drop in the condo market of -3.5 percent year-over-year. The Midwest was the only area to experience an increase in the quarter-over-quarter change, rising from 2.6 percent in the second quarter to 4.9 percent in the third quarter.
Other interesting findings from the third quarter report include:
Five most expensive metropolitan Areas (measured by Zindex):
San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose ($702,298)
Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County ($555,391)
San Diego ($535,391)
New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island ($472,042)
Sacramento-Yolo ($403,886)
Five least expensive metropolitan areas (measured by Zindex):
Oklahoma City ($98,323)
San Antonio ($100,108)
Memphis ($106,664)
Dayton-Springfield ($109,162)
Houston-Galveston-Brazoria ($126,821)
Metro areas with the highest Q3 appreciation rates year-over-year:
Jacksonville (19.1%)
Portland-Salem (17.9%)
Orlando (17.6%)
Richmond-Petersburg (16.2%)
Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater (15.9%)
Metro areas with the most Q3 depreciation year-over-year:
Hartford (-3.7%)
Cincinnati-Hamilton (-3.3%)
San Diego (-1.6%)
Boston-Worcester-Lawrence-Lowell-Brockton (-1.5%)
Sacramento-Yolo (-1.1%)
Greatest Zillow Interest Index (ZII): Cities of Denver, Chicago, Las Vegas, the entire state of Florida and Arizona, the entire West Coast and the DC-Boston corridor (Note: ZII is a ratio of the number of Zillow.com page views of individual homes in a ZIP code divided by the number of homes in the ZIP code).
The Zindex home value indicator is the median Zestimate valuation for a given geographic area on a given day. Exactly half the Zestimates for a region are below this number and half the Zestimates are above it. It is expressed in dollars and is for a particular geographic region.
For the full home value report and to see reports specific to the Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix or South Florida areas, visit www.zillow.com/quarterlies/QuarterlyReports.htm.
Source: Mortgage Minute 11/10/06