The Latest News From the Housing Market
At the beginning of October RPX Monthly published Housing Market Report with results for July 2008.
Key Characteristics:
* Not surprisingly, July demonstrated both continued tear-over-year market weakness what history suggests is a mid-summer lull in market activity.
o Prices in 24 MSAs were below thair July levels while one MSA, Milwaukee, saw year-over-year price growth.
o The largest price declines continue to be concentrated in California and Southwestern states, where translation count increases are driven by a surge in foreclosure-related sales.
*Heavily discounted foreclosure related transactions are pushing down MSA prices. As and when the inventory of foreclosed homes is absorbed, the influence of these transactions on MSA prices will be reduced. At that time, traditional market dynamics will become more apparent.
*In market where foreclosure related sales make up a smaller percentage of total sales, month-over-month price declines in July reflect expected decreases coming off the June peak of the summer byuing season.
o Historically prices and transaction counts in many MSAs are lower in July than in June and August though they remain at elevated levels compared to the rest of the year.
* Trading in forwards contracts on RPX increased cignificantly in September. Cumulative trading volume for the 12 months ended September 2008 reached approximately $2 billion.
* Prices for RPX Composite forwards generally increased in September, as the US Government worked to increase the availability of credit to institutions and consumers, including procpective homebuyers. The forwards showed their biggest on-day-move following the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie mac, and received a firther boost after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson proposed his $700 bln rescue plan. This suggests that the market is acting like a normalized asset class and trading in line with economic and event-driven forces.
*Prices for RPX New York forwards dropped in September, which is logical given expectations that weakness in the financial sector will translate into weakness in the New York housing market in the near term.
Brief Commentary: This is a view of the average market. It doesn’t not reflect prices in some exclusive areas and the luxury real estate in the U.S.
Source: RPX Monthly, Housing Market Report, www.radarlogic.com
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Click to subscribe to the Argo Developers Blog via RSS.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment