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Economists: Housing (Price ) Declines to Remain Small
Daily Real Estate News | Washington Post — Charles W. Calomiris, Stanley D. Longhofer and William Miles | August 2008
A team of economists who created a variety of forecasting models concludes that predictions of further large housing price declines are greatly overblown. They point to the house price index of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise as most reflective of reality. Its data reveals that only four states — Arizona, California, Florida, and Nevada — have had declines of more than 4 percent in home prices over the past year.
These economists, including professors from Columbia University and from the Center for Real Estate at Wichita State University in Kansas, discount more drastic figures from the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller housing price index. They say this index is faulty because it doesn’t include data from 13 states and offers only partial coverage of 29 others, making its results an inaccurate reflection of middle-market homeownership.
Using a model constructed from the OFHEO price index, foreclosures, home sales, permits and employment, the economic team concluded that declines in house prices are highly likely to remain small.
Our analysis reveals, unsurprisingly, that foreclosures and home prices have negative effects on each other over time, but this does not imply a vicious cycle of collapsing prices. Our models predict that as foreclosures continue to climb in many states, house prices will remain flat or decline in those states — but will not collapse.
One reason for this is that the effect of foreclosure shocks on house prices is small. Furthermore, other fundamental factors (such as employment growth and a slowing of the growth of the housing supply over the past year and a half) will cushion the impact of foreclosures,” the economic team said.
Latest Blog Postings
Are you choosing from half of the homes on the market?
When you were searching for homes in Houston, maybe you didn’t realize that you were viewing a limited number of listings on nationally-know web sites like Google, Zillow, or Yahoo, but a recent survey suggests just that. The WAV group studied “advertising web sites” and found that many lacked the most up-to-date listing information, with some sites missing between 31% and 64% of the listings, according to their survey results as reported in TexasRealtor Magazine.
Why should I pay asking price if the housing market has dropped 15%
Today’s Houston real estate asking prices are derived from local market conditions based on comparable sales prices paid by home buyers in a particular neighborhood. Despite recent sales volume declines, prices are holding steady across Houston. While that may not be true for all Houston area neighborhoods, there hasn’t been an overall 15% drop in Houston home values. The housing supply is growing — tending to favor home buyers — but it hasn’t increased enough to force home sellers into large double-digit price reductions.
Houston Market Conditions
Buyer & Seller ResourcesSeptember 2008: Home sales down dramatically as Houston recovers from Hurricane Ike
Hurricane Ike’s impact on local housing sales was dramatic — power outages and property damages forced the postponement of real estate closings across the area. Houston’s residential real estate housing market sales were down significantly in September 2008 with a year-to-year sales decline of 29.5% — the lowest September sales volume in years. Nationally, sales for existing homes were up 5.57% in September.
Markets across the US experienced home price declines of up to 20% or more, while Houston’s median home price for existing single-family housing made modest gains throughout the current year. In September, the median price increased again — jumping 5% in year-to-year comparisons from $150,000 to $157,500. For the US market, the median home price declined 9.0% from $210,500 to $191,600 in year-to-year comparisons.
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- 10 Most Expensive States for Closing Costs
- Home Buyers Acting On Lower Prices
- Getting a Mortgage Tougher for Buyers
- Economists: Housing (Price ) Declines to Remain Small