Pittsburgh a top five re market (Liberty: real estate, mortgages, credit)

[pman]

Home prices are close to a bottom in Pittsburgh. In fact, the housing boom boosted prices in this market by 16%, but they really haven’t fallen. There’s also a good recovery underway in jobs here, with an economy featuring a large health and education sector, according to Local Market Monitor. At left, the skyline from the West End overlook.

5 best and 5 worst U.S. housing markets, long term - Yahoo! Finance (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/5-best-5-worst-u-050113461.html - broken link)
interestingly, atlanta and tucson are top five WORST markets along with wilmington (DE)

[gg]

Just a Yahoo article. I don't think I would put much stock into what they say. It is all about how many people they can get to read the article, not about fact. They wouldn't bother reading about the reassessment. They don't even know it is going on. When everyone gets hit with even more taxes beyond the drink, income and school taxes, everyone is broke anyway.

[pman]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

Just a Yahoo article. I don't think I would put much stock into what they say. It is all about how many people they can get to read the article, not about fact. They wouldn't bother reading about the reassessment. They don't even know it is going on. When everyone gets hit with even more taxes beyond the drink, income and school taxes, everyone is broke anyway.

yeah, it's a list, but it's no more silly than this overly negative post.

Home prices are close to a bottom in Pittsburgh. In fact, the housing boom boosted prices in this market by 16%, but they really haven’t fallen. There’s also a good recovery underway in jobs here, with an economy featuring a large health and education sector, according to Local Market Monitor. At left, the skyline from the West End overlook...Bottom 5, No. 1: Wilmington, Del.
ntinuing job losses and falling home prices plague this market. The finance sector, including credit-card operations, is big in Wilmington. Home prices got a huge boost during the boom, with a 47% rise in prices, followed by a 16% drop. “To a large extent, the housing boom here was similar to that in many other markets, not caused by any local economic circumstances...Bottom 5, No. 2: Atlanta...During the boom (between 2002 and 2007), prices rose 15%, followed by a 21% drop, according to the firm’s data. Atlanta has a diversified local economy, and high population growth — almost triple the national average. But income is below average, and the number of jobs fell 8% over the past year. “Atlanta is a more difficult story, with 200,000 jobs lost since 2007, spread fairly evenly over the manufacturing, retail, finance, business services and government sectors, but a very large 55,000 of those jobs were lost in construction. There was no home-price boom in Atlanta, very possibly because far too many new homes were built,” Winzer said

in fact, the little descriptions are better than most.

you need to realize that problems are not isolated to pittsburgh, they're everywhere

[BrianTH]

It is amusing how they used the "Home prices are close to a bottom" language. This is how you have to talk in the vast majority of large-metro markets, where it is indeed praise to say that. But Pittsburgh never really experienced much, or any, of an actual dip--home prices more just flattened for a bit, and then resumed increasing:

[gg]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

It is amusing how they used the "Home prices are close to a bottom" language. This is how you have to talk in the vast majority of large-metro markets, where it is indeed praise to say that. But Pittsburgh never really experienced much, or any, of an actual dip--home prices more just flattened for a bit, and then resumed increasing:

If you look closely at that chart you posted, you will notice we are about average in home values. There are about the same number of homes above and below us at the end of the chart.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

If you look closely at that chart you posted, you will notice we are about average in home values. There are about the same number of homes above and below us at the end of the chart.

Indeed--we have just trundled along with more or less the sort of appreciation you should expect--no boom, no bust.

By the way, here is what happens if you start the chart at 2006:



Again, you can see why "X has hit bottom" is praise for most metros, but doesn't really make sense for Pittsburgh.

[gg]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Again, you can see why "X has hit bottom" is praise for most metros, but doesn't really make sense for Pittsburgh.

As an Investor, picking a timeline can make things very misleading. Obviously anything less than 10 years wouldn't be much of a indicator in real estate, so picking the top of a market and a bottom in a timeline could show some huge loss and no doubt some people got burned. Some people sold in '06 and make a fortune as well, so overall it would be offset. Right now Pittsburgh has something to cheer about, because other markets hit some huge valley. If the markets in those areas come back, and I feel they will within 5 years, our little chart won't look as rosy. We have something to cheer about at the moment though. We didn't have a huge rise and dip. Looking at the big dip, we are looking pretty good.

Let look at another investment example. If you purchased BP in the middle of the oil spill at $26 a share and are holding it today, you are doing well. If you owned it prior to the spill and are holding it today, you are down a huge chuck of money. Timelines are best if looked at long term. I am not down on the Pittsburgh housing market, but the upside isn't strong. You can't have assessed values too high with our huge tax load in our region. Sure it is cheaper to buy a home here, but it costs a lot as a percentage of that purchase price to hold a home here due to school tax.

[BrianTH]

Here is what having a lot of "investors" playing around with your residential real estate gets you:

“Flip This House”: Investor Speculation and the Housing Bubble - Liberty Street Economics

We conclude that investors were much more important in the housing boom and bust during the 2000s than previously thought. The availability of low- and no-down-payment mortgages in the nonprime sector enabled investors to make these bets. This may have allowed the bubble to inflate further, which caused millions of owner-occupants to pay more if they wanted to buy a home for their family. In the end, even the value of the 20 percent down-payments made by responsible, prime borrowers was wiped out—leaving the housing market, and the economy, in the vulnerable state we find them in today.

I'll settle for providing actual owner-occupants with homes at a reasonable cost and average appreciation rates, and leave such "investors" to do their dirty work elsewhere.

[gg]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I'll settle for providing actual owner-occupants with homes at a reasonable cost and average appreciation rates, and leave such "investors" to do their dirty work elsewhere.

When I say INVESTOR, I am talking about everyone. A home is most everyone's largest investment. You certainly know that Brian. I am not talking about slumlords or whatever. I am talking about everyone, hence I say, AS AN INVESTOR. We all "invest" in a home, even if it is a impulse by. It is still believe it or not an investment.

[globalburgh]

The upside for the Pittsburgh market, looking long term, is very strong. Rapid real estate appreciation is a huge drag on a regional economy. Anyone looking at the bigger picture should be able to appreciate Pittsburgh as one of the best market values in the entire country.

That's tough to see when you are too busy eating a bowl of sour grapes.