The Kansas City Regional Association of Realtors released its April home sales figures this week, and there is reason for cautious optimism. April saw 2,644 home sales, an increase of 672 from April 2009. Even more encouraging is the fact that these homes’ average selling price was up by more than $5,000 from one year ago.
Additional good news is that the overall housing inventory has leveled off at around 16,500 homes. There were actually fewer homes for sale in April 2010 than April 2009. On average, it takes 7.4 months for a home to sell in the Kansas City area, down from eight months one year ago.
Overall, this is all good news so why the cautious optimism? Undoubtedly the ending of the Housing Tax Credit in April spurred much of the activity last month. It is likely that many potential homebuyers made their purchases in April to beat the deadline, so we might see that sales are down in May and June because so many buyers already jumped into the market. May’s figures will be very telling. If sales plummet, we can assume April was an anomaly caused by the tax credit. However, if sales remain strong, we might be seeing the beginnings of the housing market recovery that the economy has been yearning for since 2008.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Random Economic News
There are a couple of positive economic notes in today’s news. RealtyTrac reports that nationwide foreclosures dropped 9 percent in March and an additional 2 percent in April compared to the previous month. Now that we are a good three years into the housing crisis, it would appear that foreclosures may have finally reached their peak and we will see foreclosure numbers continue to decline.
The negative effect of foreclosed properties on all surrounding properties is well documented. While this negative impact should begin to slowly mitigate as foreclosure numbers drop, it is still far too early to declare victory over the housing crisis. An estimated 25 percent of all homeowners still owe more on their homes than they are worth. It will likely take years before the housing market gets back to some semblance of normalcy — and before homeowners can once again feel their home is a valuable asset and not a net negative to their financial well being.
On the employment side, first time unemployment filings declined again for the fourth straight week. This news comes on the heels of a solid April job growth number of 290,000.
These are not giant leaps ahead for the economy, but they can be looked at as baby steps in the right direction.
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/13/real_estate/april_foreclosures/index.htm?hpt=T2
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/13/news/economy/initial_claims/index.htm
The negative effect of foreclosed properties on all surrounding properties is well documented. While this negative impact should begin to slowly mitigate as foreclosure numbers drop, it is still far too early to declare victory over the housing crisis. An estimated 25 percent of all homeowners still owe more on their homes than they are worth. It will likely take years before the housing market gets back to some semblance of normalcy — and before homeowners can once again feel their home is a valuable asset and not a net negative to their financial well being.
On the employment side, first time unemployment filings declined again for the fourth straight week. This news comes on the heels of a solid April job growth number of 290,000.
These are not giant leaps ahead for the economy, but they can be looked at as baby steps in the right direction.
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/13/real_estate/april_foreclosures/index.htm?hpt=T2
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/13/news/economy/initial_claims/index.htm
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