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77 out of 150 metropolitan statistical areas showed declining prices.
That was the negative slant.
What he conveniently left out of his one line was this :
In the fourth quarter, 73 out of 150 metropolitan statistical areas show increases in median existing single-family home prices from a year earlier, including 11 areas with double-digit annual gains and another 12 metros showing increases of 6 percent or more; 77 had price declines including 16 with double-digit drops.
I find that to be a more balanced and informational report, that can be of more value to the general public than just hearing the negative.
Why would the media not report those full interesting facts? Isn't it significant for the public to know what is going on?
The continuing crunch in the jumbo loan market that began in August has disproportionately reduced the number of transactions in higher price ranges.
Buyers who need loans of more than $417,000, mortgage interest rates have been running more than a percentage point higher, and that has been having an obvious impact. Higher ratios of sales for more moderately priced homes are naturally dampening the national median price as well as the data for some of the more expensive markets.
Well now, here is one of those market factors at work, and one which the NAR lobbied for. The 417,00 is going to be increased in a bunch of areas. Unfortunately Phoenix is not one of them because the median home price is in the $200's and it only affects areas with a median price above $333k, or thereabouts. But we will get a higher FHA loan limit.
Higher limits for FHA loans, which go into effect March 14, will be a big help to first-time buyers in high-cost markets. Higher limits for conventional loans purchased by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will take a bit longer – when they become available, high-income, creditworthy borrowers in high-cost areas will have access to affordable and safer financing, and that will help unleash pent-up demand.
With the market in a state of flux, it’s especially important for consumers to stay abreast of widely varying and changing market conditions.
But of course if the media doesn't make that information available then how is the public going to find it?
The healthiest housing markets today generally are moderately priced and are experiencing job growth and often population growth, which in turn is supporting strong price growth.
Most of the weakest markets have either experienced both job and population losses, or they are experiencing corrections following a prolonged period of rapid price growth.
Median fourth-quarter metro area single-family home prices ranged from a very affordable $72,600 in the Youngstown-Warren-Boardman area of Ohio and Pennsylvania, to nearly 12 times that amount in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area of California, where the median price was $845,300.
The second most expensive area was San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, at $777,300, followed by the Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine area (Orange County, Calif.), at $657,400.
I left California because the cost of living was getting too high. I owned my home there (just sold it) but everything else was too expensive, so I chose to move to Phoenix where the cost of living was more affordable.
Other affordable markets include the Saginaw-Saginaw Township North area of Michigan, with a fourth-quarter median price of $74,900, and Decatur, Ill., at $75,000.
Most of the realtors on the forum have stated that the lower end of the market is moving faster than the over $500k market in most areas. Once the higher jumbo limits take effect then there should be more sales in these higher market areas, because of the approximately 1% lower interest rate.
So I think it would be more responsible of the press to give a balanced report of what is happening in the market place instead of giving only the negative portion of a report that is filled with positives.
In my other post I listed many of the factors that go into what the market uses to determine how prices will move. It is not what any one individual or groups hope the prices will be, it is what the market determines the price will be, and those factors all play a part.
Because there is so many homes are available for investors and there are investors out looking every day in our Phoenix metropolitan area, I am forming an investor team within our office. Our office specializes in investments anyway, so the expertise is there. We will be working with end user and retail investors to find properties for them to use, or to resale. These people who are there looking at properties today, who know what's really going on in the market will be the ones who do best in the market today and be well positioned to work in the market tomorrow.
Last edited by Captain Bill; 02-16-2008 at 02:02 PM..
Reason: Added link to post
And what do you propose we do about it? Ask the media to be more positive? In case you haven't been paying attention, that is a lost cause. Doom and gloom is the name of the game.
I think there is some credibility to the slant that over half declined. When was the last time that happened? How often did they report big increases?
Not taking up for news people because I think they are all shady.
Honestly I don't care. I disconnected our cable last week. Me and the wife only watch DVD's, could not tolerate television anymore.
And what do you propose we do about it? Ask the media to be more positive? In case you haven't been paying attention, that is a lost cause. Doom and gloom is the name of the game.
I think there is some credibility to the slant that over half declined. When was the last time that happened? How often did they report big increases?
Not taking up for news people because I think they are all shady.
Honestly I don't care. I disconnected our cable last week. Me and the wife only watch DVD's, could not tolerate television anymore.
That's the thing though. The dot com music kept playing until people didn't feel confident that etoys wasn't going to be making money anymore.
People sometimes confuse feeling good about an economy with its true long term viability. Good feelings promote bubbles and bad feelings promote quicker deflation, but everything in the end is rationalized away and you have a steady state market, regardless of the emotional factor. Right now tensions are high because the drop in some areas is precipitous and people's life savings are on the line. Unfortunately, there's nothing that can be done about it and we have to take our medicine.
This is not the time to be optimistic or pessimistic, it's time to be realistic.
There is a big difference between slanting the news and outright deceptive reporting.
I have just dealt with the slant with a what can you do attitude until recently and then this headline showed up in the St.Pete Times a week or so ago.
To read the headline you would think this is another story about someone who bought above their means and are now losing everything because of it.
Surprise, it has absolutely nothing to do with that. It is a story about a career criminal who killed 5 people.
Of course with the current focus on housing I guess the paper felt it would be more eye catching this way even though they were completely deceitful with the headline.
I don't know about anyone else but I thought this was just ridiculous.
In some respects, this is like saying that out of thousands of planes flying on 9-11, only 4 went down, so why all the negative press? It was only 4, after all. What about all those planes that got to their destination safely? Where's the news on those? Why did the media focus on those 4?
The answer of course, is that the crash of those 4 planes had a devastating psychological and financial effect on people nation-wide.
Likewise with the real estate crisis, there has been a devastating effect on many people nation-wide, beginning with individual sellers and their neighbors whose values are brought down, spreading to agents and mortgage brokers who've been laid off, builders whose companies are failing, to banks and other lenders and stock markets feeling the pain of defaults, spreading from the U.S. to overseas markets...and so on.
There are many posts by sellers throughout the city-data forums who are having a very difficult and stressful time trying to sell, so they can get on with their lives; concerned about how much they'll get out of their homes, and what they'll be able to afford and finance once they've sold and need to buy another place.
In my own area, news outlets had virtually no negative news to report on the housing market until late 2007. Up till then, it was all roses and sunshine despite what was happening nationally. Then suddenly, oops, people started falling behind on their payments and bank-owned properties are popping up everywhere. The state discovered that more people took out ARMs than the state had originally estimated and the foreclosure estimate for 2008 was adjusted upward. Then companies supporting the homebuilding industry started laying people off. How are all those people in the remote areas with few job options going to pay their mortgages, or even their grocery bills? Check back with me later this year, but right now I'm thinking things are going to get worse before they get better. And that's not a doom & gloom attitude. It's just logic. For every action there is a reaction.
I don't mean to be cold but. A lot of folks facing foreclosure financed 100% loans two years ago. If they wrapped closing cost in their loans they had no cash outlay and a low payment and a nice house. Other people rented for those same two years with no initial cash outlay also. How are they different? If one gets foreclosed and the other evicted how are they different? Each paid a monthly cost for living in their home. Each has a credit issue. They people to feel for are the ones who put 10-20% percent down and will lose that.
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