Housing on the Mend, Ever So Gradually
The Lawhead Team would like to share a recent article about housing we found through California Association of Realtors website from the New York Times:
Source: New York Times
An important sign of health for the housing market is whether builders of new homes are selling more houses than banks do. Hanley Wood, a real estate research firm, calculated the extent to which housing is on the mend.
Making sense of the story:
- While the gap is narrowing, overall banks are still selling more homes than builders.
- The volume of new-home sales turned up in 2011 and has been rising gradually since then, although it remains far below the boom levels that existed before the financial crisis.
- However, the volume of sales by banks has been declining for more than two years.
- Hanley Wood figures show that in eight major metropolitan areas, banks still sell more than 20 percent of homes that change hands. In only four of the 20 areas observed did builders outsell banks.
In the first quarter, about 8 percent of home sales nationally were made by builders and 17 percent by banks.- While there are concerns about home sales slowing down, Jonathan Smoke, the chief economist at Hanley Wood, commented, “You can fret all you want about the total volumes being up or down, but the reality is that the residential real estate market is getting healthier and healthier each month. The health is reflected in the share of non-distressed, normal transactions continuing to rise.”
- In addition, more homes are being bought by people who intend to live in them rather than by investors who plan to rent them out.
Read the full story about Housing On The Mend from the New York Times.
