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Economics
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Written by Jonathan Smoke
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05.12.2008 |
 One of the best leading indicators of what home prices will do in actual home closings is what is happening with listings. The view of the “ask” side of home prices (the price at which homes are listed) is showing that the trend is now positive.
For proof, look at the 7-day and 90-day price trend in our new Home Sales Trends page, which is powered by Altos Research. As you can see from the captured chart for a national 25-city composite, the 90-day trend bottomed in late March and is slowly trending higher. | | No comments for this item |
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Economics
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Written by Jonathan Smoke
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05.09.2008 |
 Earlier in the week I reported on the latest published expectations of well regarded economists and their specific views of when new home sales will reach bottom and begin to rebound on a national level.
Bill Russell and I have been working on our own national forecast all week. I didn’t think some traditional forecast models we’ve used, as well as seen from others, reflected the fundamental shifts occurring on credit and home ownership, so we’ve worked on incorporating a variety of new variables into a model. | | No comments for this item |
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Economics
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Written by Jonathan Smoke
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05.07.2008 |
 A series of prominent forecasts have been issued lately regarding when housing will reach a bottom and begin a recovery.
Last week the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) hosted its spring Construction Forecast Conference. Handouts from many of the presentations are available at the NAHB site.
Mark Zandi of Moody’s forecast that housing will rebound beginning in the spring of 2009. | | No comments for this item |
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Market Research
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Written by Jonathan Smoke
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05.02.2008 |
 Chris Plummer wrote a great piece for MarketWatch yesterday entitled, “Home-price data has its flaws; Market anomalies painting skewed picture, index producers acknowledge.” While I wish he would have picked up on my hypothesis that foreclosures are making Case-Shiller’s indices paint a more negative picture than really exists, I couldn’t have agreed more with the points made in the article. | | No comments for this item |
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Economics
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Written by Jonathan Smoke
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04.29.2008 |
 Standard & Poor’s released the February Case-Shiller Home Price Indices today. The headline reading is that home prices were down in February 12.7% over the prior year. That reading was from the 20-city composite. Their original 10-city composite was down a record 13.6%.
“There is no sign of a bottom in the numbers,” says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor's. “Prices of single family homes continue to drop across the nation. All 20 metro areas were in the red for the February-over-January reading. In addition, 19 of the 20 MSAs are still reporting negative annual returns. The monthly data show that every one of the MSAs has now declined every month since September 2007, marking six consecutive months.” | | No comments for this item |
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Market Research
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Written by Jonathan Smoke
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04.28.2008 |
 On Friday, I tried to explain the benefits of using data driven analysis for housing market research. As I said, the research should be focused on three critical actions: know your buyer, know your market, and know your competition. Most builders and developers get stuck trying to understand the buyers. The best way I know to understand your buyer is through detailed research using our Consumer Groups. With this information you can use the rich profile of the optimal consumer group to guide the design of the community, plans, standard features and options to offer. Leverage the lifestyle information to design the collateral, the model homes and the optimal promotional strategy. Need a prospect list for direct mail? Purchase a cost-effective, laser-guided list targeting the exact segments with good credit and the right income to afford your product. | | No comments for this item |
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Market Research
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Written by Jonathan Smoke
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04.25.2008 |
 I spent a decade consulting to and then working in a variety of positions with national top 10 builders where I got great exposure to all aspects of a home building operation. I also invested part of a year doing a tour of duty through literally every function. I learned what it was like to “shoot pads,” deal with development and entitlement headaches, design communities and plans, sell homes, negotiate contracts, issue purchase orders, manage subcontractors, monitor results and profitability, build homes, and care for customers afterwards. | | No comments for this item |
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