Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Broad-Based Real Estate Recovery Taking Hold

1. "For the fourth month in a row, the RE/MAX National Housing Report is showing an increasing Median Home Price. In May, home prices were 6.1% higher than those in May 2011. Home sales also rose above the mark set last year by a significant 12. 8%. With 42 surveyed metros showing increases in BOTH sales and prices, the recovery of 2012 appears to be taking hold in all regions of the country. For 11 months in a row, home sales have exceeded the level of the same month a year ago. Inventory continues to fall significantly lower than the previous year, with a 26.6% drop from May 2011. The related Months Supply and Days on Market figures are also trending lower."

“Clearly, 2012 is the year the housing industry has been waiting for; there’s a broad-based recovery taking hold,” said Margaret Kelly, CEO of RE/MAX, LLC. “This recovery may not bring improvement in all sectors to all markets at the same time, but most markets across the country are experiencing the best selling season they’ve seen in years.”

2. "Sales and prices of existing homes in Wisconsin continued to rebound in May, another indication that the long-languishing housing market is on the mend. Home sales jumped 18.9% in May from May 2011, the 11th consecutive month of a double-digit increase from the same month a year earlier, the Wisconsin Realtors Association said Monday. At the same time, the median home sale price in the state rose 1.5% in May to $138,000. Through May, sales for 2012 are up 20.2% from the same period last year."

3.  WASHINGTON(AP) – "Home builders started work on more single-family homes in May and requested the most permits to build homes and apartments in three and a half years.  The increase suggests the housing market is slowly recovering even as other areas of the economy have weakened.  The government also said April was much better for housing starts than first thought. The government revised up the April figures to 744,000 — fastest building pace since October 2008.

And builders are more optimistic about the next 12 months. They requested more permits to build homes, a gauge of future construction. Permits increased to a seasonally adjusted rate of 780,000 — the most since September 2008."

6 Comments:

At 6/19/2012 8:53 AM, Blogger juandos said...

Hmmm, for what its worth from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development:

BUILDING PERMITS

Privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits in May were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 780,000. This is 7.9 percent (±1.0%) above the revised April rate of 723,000 and is 25.0 percent (±1.5%) above the May 2011 estimate of 624,000. Single-family authorizations in May were at a rate of 494,000; this is 4.0 percent (±0.8%) above the revised April figure of 475,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 266,000 in May.

HOUSING STARTS

Privately-owned housing starts in May were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 708,000. This is 4.8 percent (±12.7%)* below the revised April estimate of 744,000, but is 28.5 percent (±10.7%) above the May 2011 rate of 551,000. Single-family housing starts in May were at a rate of 516,000; this is 3.2 percent (±12.5%)* above the revised April figure of 500,000. The May rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 179,000.

 
At 6/19/2012 9:30 AM, Blogger morganovich said...

while this is good news and a sign of recovery, it is worth noting that 2008 levels were already deeply depressed from 2005-6.

even now they are still down around 70% from 2005 and are not even 1/2 the level of 1968.

just the fact of starting to head up meaningfully is an important turning point, but this is a long climb ahead.

as ever, CR has some wonderful graphs:

http://www.crgraphs.com/2011/10/housing-graphs.html

 
At 6/19/2012 9:31 AM, Blogger bart said...

RE/MAX has a vested interest, and their median price numbers are *very far* above anyone else.

April RPX down ~1% YoY in both March & April.

Corelogic up 1% YoY.

Case Shiller down almost 3% YoY.

Dataquick up about 5% YoY.


Median house still down about 30% from the peak.

Over 1.5 million homes ('other' vacancies classification from Census ) not included in shadow inventory.

 
At 6/19/2012 11:11 AM, Blogger morganovich said...

zillow also showed -1.8% yoy for april.

remax does not normalize for home size/quality/neighborhood, etc.

their numbers may be mistaking the sale of bigger, better located, and higher priced homes for a recovery when it is really just mix shift.

 
At 6/19/2012 11:15 AM, Blogger Bill said...

I'll take any improvement. It's been brutal here in Atlanta but our commercial real estate lawyers are seeing a much better year in terms of transactions than they've had since 2008.

 
At 6/28/2012 12:19 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

Great to see the market doing well.
Mario Sanchez

 

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