We just got back from the National Association of Realtors convention in Washington DC and it was very informative and lost of fun.
We stayed on Connecticut Ave close to Dupont Circle and took the Metro everywhere. From someone out in the desert that is still fun!.
We learned that alot of markets are dealing with short sales and lots of foreclosures so that makes the real estate market in El Paso, Tx look super. We do not have many short sales and our foreclosures are down 50%.
It is still a great time to buy in El Paso and the market has really picked back up and sales are strong. Some sellers are still giving concessions but prices are selling about 3% list price to sales price ratio.
Back to DC, if you go there soon there is a great Tuscan restaurant on 19th St called I Ricchi that was wonderful and the presentation was what made the evening. Our waiter was an appraiser also so he was fun to talk to since we were all in real estate.
We got to visit our Congressman and State Senators at the Capitol Building and we went to the Newsmuseum near the Capitol Building and it was fantastic.
Active Rain Real Estate Network
You can find great local El Paso, Texas real estate information on Localism.com Patti Olivas is a proud member of the ActiveRain Real Estate Network, a free online community to help real estate professionals grow their business.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Great News about Local Markets
Markets that missed the boom now sport rising home prices
Monday April 21, 1:37 pm ET
By Amy Hoak
In some housing markets, homes aren't only retaining value -- they're gaining
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Challenging real estate markets can be found across the U.S. as home prices decline, sales fall and foreclosures rise. But in some places the biggest challenge has been convincing would-be buyers and sellers that local conditions don't resemble the national trends.
It's a challenge that Randy Jeffers, chairman of the Texas Association of Realtors, faces all the time.
While the number of sales has fallen somewhat, he still regards his market of Amarillo, Texas, as a seller's market right now. The median price of an existing single-family home in Amarillo was up an annualized 11% in the fourth quarter, according to the National Association of Realtors.
"Often they're surprised about what is going on locally or statewide," he said of his clients. As the country's collective housing ills land bold headlines, locals incorrectly extrapolate the information to their own markets, Jeffers added.
The housing problems largely aren't national but regional in nature, said Susan Wachter, a real estate professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
"The interesting thing is that there are parts of the country where housing prices are doing fine, thank you," she said. In fact, only five states are in what she would consider a housing recession: California, Arizona, Nevada, Florida and Michigan.
In the fourth quarter of 2007, 73 out of 150 metropolitan areas showed an increase in the median existing single-family home price compared with the same quarter in 2006, according to statistics from the national Realtors group.
That isn't to say these markets are immune from some national trends.
For one, stricter lending standards put in place in the wake of poor mortgage performance in many parts of the country are affecting people regardless of where they live. Requirements of larger down payments and higher credit scores are keeping some people from buying homes, especially first-time buyers, and are often driving down the volume of sales.
If the job picture weakens as a result of a slowing economy, that could also affect some of the most stable markets.
Recently, however, the places where homes seem to be holding the most value are those where prices didn't surge during the boom years and where economies are staying strong. In large cities, it's often the areas that are located closest to the city's core.
Places the boom forgot
Single-digit appreciation may have looked meager in the years of the boom, when red-hot markets experienced bidding wars and high investor interest. Now, as some markets experience steep price drops, those rates aren't looking so bad after all.
Areas in upstate New York, Texas, some Rocky Mountain states and the Carolinas are faring better than the rest of the country in terms of price appreciation these days, said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.
In general, there weren't caravans of speculators in these areas driving up prices. Plus -- unlike some trouble spots in the Midwest such as Detroit -- many of the local economies in these markets remained stable.
Utah -- where home prices rose 9.27% in the fourth quarter of 2007 compared with the fourth quarter of 2006 -- was the state with the highest appreciation rate, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. Utah was followed by Wyoming, where prices rose 8.27% over the year, North Dakota, where prices rose 7.87%, and Montana, where prices rose 6.90%.
Still, in Billings, Mont., buyers often say they're waiting for prices to come down, said Dan Wagner, president of the Montana State Association of Realtors. But because they never soared during the boom years, prices likely aren't in need of a correction, he said.
Where the jobs are
The strong employment picture in Seattle caused home prices there to rise after other major cities reached their peaks. Appreciation there in the fourth quarter was just over 1%, according to NAR, but it is believed that the city's employment landscape is keeping Seattle housing from losing value.
A similar situation is shaping up in other markets.
Home-prices in major cities fell 10.7% in January compared with January 2007, according to the Case-Shiller home price index. The index tracks 20 cities, and 19 of them saw year-over-year declines. But one market experienced modest home-price gains over the year: Charlotte, N.C., another market that never saw a huge run-up in prices during the boom.
An influx of banking and research jobs in the Carolinas -- especially in Charlotte and the Research Triangle -- has been important to its stability, said Marty Frame, general manager of Cyberhomes.com. About 15,000 jobs were created in the Charlotte area last year, said Dot Munson, president of the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association. Large employers in the area include US Airways, Bank of America and Wachovia.
The jobs are luring people to the city, she said, and one of the biggest challenges transplants have is getting their former homes sold if they're coming from a market that is sluggish.
"They have to rent for a while or do something creative for a place to live," Munson said.
Job growth has also been strong in Texas, where the oil and gas industries are big employers. In March, the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metropolitan area experienced the fastest year-over-year rate of job growth among the nation's major metropolitan areas, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Second place went to the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington market.
Texas ranked eighth in OFHEO's list of states with the highest year-over-year appreciation during the fourth quarter of last year, preceded by Alaska, Washington and New Mexico.
Close to the core
In metropolitan areas, including San Francisco, Washington and New York, homes are typically retaining more of their value the closer they are to the city's core, Wachter said. In fact, declining home values in an area's suburbs are tending to drag down the average for the rest of the metropolitan area, she said.
Manhattan, however, tends to be a real-estate juggernaut all its own.
The average price of a Manhattan apartment was up 47% in the first quarter, compared with the first quarter of 2007, according to Brown Harris Stevens, a provider of real-estate services in the area. The boost was largely due to an increase in high-end sales that occurred at two luxury condo developments.
But the median price of a Manhattan apartment, which is less impacted by high-end activity, also rose 13% over the year, according to the firm.
One driver of the market: A rising demand for three- and four-bedroom units in Manhattan, said Jim Gricar, executive vice president of Brown Harris Stevens. More families are opting to live in the city as opposed to seeking larger homes in the suburbs, as was common in the 1980s and early 1990s, he said.
"After years of the city reinventing itself... (Manhattan is) attracting families and keeping people who might have moved to Scarsdale," he said.
Monday April 21, 1:37 pm ET
By Amy Hoak
In some housing markets, homes aren't only retaining value -- they're gaining
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Challenging real estate markets can be found across the U.S. as home prices decline, sales fall and foreclosures rise. But in some places the biggest challenge has been convincing would-be buyers and sellers that local conditions don't resemble the national trends.
It's a challenge that Randy Jeffers, chairman of the Texas Association of Realtors, faces all the time.
While the number of sales has fallen somewhat, he still regards his market of Amarillo, Texas, as a seller's market right now. The median price of an existing single-family home in Amarillo was up an annualized 11% in the fourth quarter, according to the National Association of Realtors.
"Often they're surprised about what is going on locally or statewide," he said of his clients. As the country's collective housing ills land bold headlines, locals incorrectly extrapolate the information to their own markets, Jeffers added.
The housing problems largely aren't national but regional in nature, said Susan Wachter, a real estate professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
"The interesting thing is that there are parts of the country where housing prices are doing fine, thank you," she said. In fact, only five states are in what she would consider a housing recession: California, Arizona, Nevada, Florida and Michigan.
In the fourth quarter of 2007, 73 out of 150 metropolitan areas showed an increase in the median existing single-family home price compared with the same quarter in 2006, according to statistics from the national Realtors group.
That isn't to say these markets are immune from some national trends.
For one, stricter lending standards put in place in the wake of poor mortgage performance in many parts of the country are affecting people regardless of where they live. Requirements of larger down payments and higher credit scores are keeping some people from buying homes, especially first-time buyers, and are often driving down the volume of sales.
If the job picture weakens as a result of a slowing economy, that could also affect some of the most stable markets.
Recently, however, the places where homes seem to be holding the most value are those where prices didn't surge during the boom years and where economies are staying strong. In large cities, it's often the areas that are located closest to the city's core.
Places the boom forgot
Single-digit appreciation may have looked meager in the years of the boom, when red-hot markets experienced bidding wars and high investor interest. Now, as some markets experience steep price drops, those rates aren't looking so bad after all.
Areas in upstate New York, Texas, some Rocky Mountain states and the Carolinas are faring better than the rest of the country in terms of price appreciation these days, said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.
In general, there weren't caravans of speculators in these areas driving up prices. Plus -- unlike some trouble spots in the Midwest such as Detroit -- many of the local economies in these markets remained stable.
Utah -- where home prices rose 9.27% in the fourth quarter of 2007 compared with the fourth quarter of 2006 -- was the state with the highest appreciation rate, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. Utah was followed by Wyoming, where prices rose 8.27% over the year, North Dakota, where prices rose 7.87%, and Montana, where prices rose 6.90%.
Still, in Billings, Mont., buyers often say they're waiting for prices to come down, said Dan Wagner, president of the Montana State Association of Realtors. But because they never soared during the boom years, prices likely aren't in need of a correction, he said.
Where the jobs are
The strong employment picture in Seattle caused home prices there to rise after other major cities reached their peaks. Appreciation there in the fourth quarter was just over 1%, according to NAR, but it is believed that the city's employment landscape is keeping Seattle housing from losing value.
A similar situation is shaping up in other markets.
Home-prices in major cities fell 10.7% in January compared with January 2007, according to the Case-Shiller home price index. The index tracks 20 cities, and 19 of them saw year-over-year declines. But one market experienced modest home-price gains over the year: Charlotte, N.C., another market that never saw a huge run-up in prices during the boom.
An influx of banking and research jobs in the Carolinas -- especially in Charlotte and the Research Triangle -- has been important to its stability, said Marty Frame, general manager of Cyberhomes.com. About 15,000 jobs were created in the Charlotte area last year, said Dot Munson, president of the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association. Large employers in the area include US Airways, Bank of America and Wachovia.
The jobs are luring people to the city, she said, and one of the biggest challenges transplants have is getting their former homes sold if they're coming from a market that is sluggish.
"They have to rent for a while or do something creative for a place to live," Munson said.
Job growth has also been strong in Texas, where the oil and gas industries are big employers. In March, the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metropolitan area experienced the fastest year-over-year rate of job growth among the nation's major metropolitan areas, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Second place went to the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington market.
Texas ranked eighth in OFHEO's list of states with the highest year-over-year appreciation during the fourth quarter of last year, preceded by Alaska, Washington and New Mexico.
Close to the core
In metropolitan areas, including San Francisco, Washington and New York, homes are typically retaining more of their value the closer they are to the city's core, Wachter said. In fact, declining home values in an area's suburbs are tending to drag down the average for the rest of the metropolitan area, she said.
Manhattan, however, tends to be a real-estate juggernaut all its own.
The average price of a Manhattan apartment was up 47% in the first quarter, compared with the first quarter of 2007, according to Brown Harris Stevens, a provider of real-estate services in the area. The boost was largely due to an increase in high-end sales that occurred at two luxury condo developments.
But the median price of a Manhattan apartment, which is less impacted by high-end activity, also rose 13% over the year, according to the firm.
One driver of the market: A rising demand for three- and four-bedroom units in Manhattan, said Jim Gricar, executive vice president of Brown Harris Stevens. More families are opting to live in the city as opposed to seeking larger homes in the suburbs, as was common in the 1980s and early 1990s, he said.
"After years of the city reinventing itself... (Manhattan is) attracting families and keeping people who might have moved to Scarsdale," he said.
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