Home Blog

Are We Nearing a Top in Foreclosure Activity? Mortgage Written by Jonathan Smoke    07.10.2008 The ForeclosurePulse blog from the folks at RealtyTrac has a great post today about the release of their June data. The June data showed that U.S. foreclosure activity in June decreased 3 percent from May but was still up 53 percent from the prior year. The blog post nicely raised the question if this is a sign of a top or not. The argument against this being a top is that the year-over-year comparison still shows foreclosures much higher. Moreover, there have been several months during the last two years that month-over-month activity registered declines. No comments for this item Read more...

Income and Home Affordability Economics Written by Bill Russell    07.07.2008 Today I want to consider the relationship between income and affordability. Though income is directly included in the calculation of the affordability index, it only explains about 16% of the resulting index. Obviously, areas with higher income can afford to build nicer homes and support higher levels of urbanization. In addition, economic research has shown that successful cities do not necessitate higher incomes, but cause them through increased productivity, so that a successful city will necessarily have higher incomes than other areas. No comments for this item Read more...   Free Reports Now Available for 939 Markets in the U.S. Market Research Written by Jonathan Smoke    07.02.2008 Intelligence is a bad thing to waste. From our experience, too many otherwise rational professionals make housing related decisions by gut feel due to lack of information. That’s why our tag line is “Don’t just guess.” In order to increase our exposure and help out local chambers of commerce and home building associations, we’ve elected to make a basic report on key housing metrics available for free. You can find them in our aptly titled “Free Reports” under Intelligence on our main site navigation. No comments for this item Read more...   Urbanization and Affordability Economics Written by Bill Russell    06.30.2008 Though urbanization alone cannot explain high home prices, there is a relationship, as can be seen in the graph below. The graph shows the percentage of urban land in each of the 361 census MSAs verses the affordability index. In general, as urbanization increases, affordability declines. This relationship is weak. Urbanization only explains 5% of affordability variation. No comments for this item Read more...   Recap of Week’s News—A Mixed Bag But With Hope of a Bottom for Sales Economics Written by Jonathan Smoke    06.27.2008 What a week for news on the housing front. In one week we’ve had the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies release of their annual State of the Nation’s Housing Report, the release of Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Indices for April, the Commerce Department’s release of New Home Sales data, and the National Association of Realtor’s release of existing home sales data for May. The signals weren’t clear and since the financial markets were very negative this week, it would be easy to frame an opinion that the housing data were overwhelmingly negative. I would suggest that would be a bad interpretation. If anything, the mixed results could be construed as more positive that perhaps we are seeing signs of a bottom in sales. No comments for this item Read more...   Unaffordable by Choice Economics Written by Bill Russell    06.23.2008 As you look at markets with high home prices and low affordability, it becomes clear that they are unlike other markets. What causes these markets to have such high home prices? It cannot be labor and building supplies, since they are mobile in a nationwide market, so there is no reason to think they are the cause of isolated high home prices. The cause has to be something unique to local markets and inelastic in supply, and that cause is clearly land prices and therefore, land supply. No comments for this item Read more...   The Cost of Unaffordable Housing Economics Written by Bill Russell    06.19.2008 On Tuesday I showed that, for most of the US, affordability has been stable or improving since 2000 but that some markets have gotten less affordable. Today I want to look at one of the consequences facing those less affordable markets. As can be seen in the graph below, job growth is closely tied to home affordability. The graph groups the 361 largest markets into 10 groups, from most affordable to least affordable. As you move from the most affordable groups down to the least affordable, job growth declines from around 10% since 2003, to around 2%. Clearly, businesses prefer to locate and expand in areas that have affordable homes. No comments for this item Read more...

More... May Permits and Starts Move Sideways The Myth of Eroding Affordability Employment Grows (In Spite of Housing Bust) Southern Building Show Starts Off with Good Advice to Builders Visit Us at the Southern Building Show April Pending Home Sales Index Bodes Well One Big Builder’s View of the Market Gives Me Confidence Mortgage Data Now Available in Market Dashboard Reports Hangin’ in the OC New Data Send Confusing Signals About Market Conditions

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Results 18 - 34 of 216