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Archive: Statistics
Is Washington turning into a seller's market?
The inventory of homes listed for sale on the local multiple listing service, Metropolitan Regional Information Services, the cupboard is pretty bare in some spots. At the current sales pace, Manassas Park City has just 1.3 months' worth of listings. Manassas City, just 1.4 months. Falls Church City, 2.1 months; and Fairfax County just 2.7 months. Arlington County has 3.9 months. The rule of thumb says 6 months' inventory marks a balanced market--favoring neither sellers nor buyers.
By Elizabeth Razzi | November 13, 2009; 12:48 PM ET | Comments (14)
Have you refinanced yet?
Mortgage interest rates dropped again this week, hitting just 4.91 percent with 0.7 points (prepaid interest) for a 30-year fixed-rate loan. That is so low it almost demands a rush to the refinancing table. (Then again, bank deposits are paying less than 2 percent, so maybe rates aren't that low, after all.)
By Elizabeth Razzi | November 12, 2009; 12:00 PM ET | Comments (1)
Washington-area home prices down 2.5% from last year
The median home price for homes sold in the Washington, D.C., area, a vast Census territory that stretches from the Chesapeake bay to West Virginia, fell 2.5 percent during the July-September quarter compared to a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors. The price decline was greater for Washington-area condos. At a median of $244,300, prices were down 7.1 percent compared to a year ago, or 0.2 percent compared to the second quarter of this year.
By Elizabeth Razzi | November 10, 2009; 12:45 PM ET | Comments (12)
Now you can get closed-sale prices as fast as a real estate agent
Starting this morning, Redfin is posting closed-sale prices and photographs for all homes on the multiple listing services serving the Washington area (and about a dozen other metro areas) as soon as the listing broker marks the sale as final.
By Elizabeth Razzi | November 5, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (1)
Refinancers save $3 billion in a year
People who refinanced during the July-September quarter cut their interest rate by an average of 1.1 percentage point, and they stand to save $3 billion, all together, over the first 12 months of their new loan, according to Freddie Mac. Another telling statistic: The median appreciation of the refinanced property was 0 percent during the third quarter. Zero.
By Elizabeth Razzi | November 3, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (0)
Washington area is short 40,000 homes affordable to average earners
We now have a shortage of about 40,000 for-sale homes within a 30- 45-minute commute of those employment hubs that are affordable to people earning these incomes, according to the report. They predict the shortage of affordable for-sale homes will grow by 5,000 units per year between 2010 and 2030. And recent declines in area home prices haven’t helped much, they say, because housing close to those employment hubs took less of a hit than homes farther out in the suburbs.
By Elizabeth Razzi | October 29, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (16)
Get Free Alerts if Someone Messes With Your Deed
First American CoreLogic's ePropertyWatch service allows users to set up a password-protected account and receive e-mail updates reporting recent home sales, foreclosures and, most important, the registration of any changes to public records reflecting your ownership of the home. Such changes could include liens or deed transfers filed without you knowing about it.
By Elizabeth Razzi | October 15, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (4)
A Flood of Solar Events and The Weekend Poll
The 19th Annual Metro Washington, D.C., Tour of Solar Homes and Buildings is scheduled for this weekend, Oct. 3-5. And the National Mall is in the process of turning into one solar-powered housing development.
By Elizabeth Razzi | October 2, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (0)
Fewer New Home Sales, But Greater Satisfaction
There may not have been that many people buying newly built houses lately, but those who did are pretty satisfied customers, according a survey by market researchers J.D. Power and Associates. Nationwide, overall consumer satisfaction hit 811 on a 1,000-point scale in their 2009 survey, up 32 points from last year. The most commonly reported complaints were with landscaping, heating and air conditioning, and kitchen cabinet quality and finish.
By Elizabeth Razzi | September 17, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (0)
Fuel Bills May Shrink This Winter
The rates we pay to heat our homes this winter will probably be lower than last year, according to the latest forecast from the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration.
By Elizabeth Razzi | September 10, 2009; 12:10 PM ET | Comments (0)
Price Increases Coming in Foreclosure Hot Spots?
Another report based on Metropolitan Regional Information Systems data says the supply of for-sale homes in the Washington area fell in July, to 5.3 months' worth. "That level of supply is considered at or below equilibrium," according to the folks at Metrostudy, a consultant hired by MRIS, the local multiple listings service. And because supply is below the six-month threshold that marks a balanced market, they expected prices to rise soon. However, not everyone agrees.
By Elizabeth Razzi | August 12, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (14)
Choosing Bankruptcy to Avoid Foreclosure
Even though you cannot get rid of your mortgage payments through bankruptcy, about one in five people who went through mandatory pre-bankruptcy credit counseling said they were doing so to avoid losing their homes to foreclosure, according to Consumer Credit Counseling Services of Greater Atlanta. That organization provides counseling throughout the United States.
By Elizabeth Razzi | August 6, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (1)
Housing Demand in Area Outpacing Supply
The inventory of homes listed for sale in the Washington metro area dropped to just 5.1 months' worth in June, according to a report from Delta Associates, a real estate consulting firm, and Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc., the local multiple listings service. That's an important milestone for the local housing market. Analysts usually cite a six-month supply as normal for a balanced market. Five months' supply takes us out of a buyer's market and toward one that favors sellers.
By Elizabeth Razzi | August 5, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (10)
Do High-Voltage Lines Zap Property Values?
The verdict is delivered as if it's a clear-cut conclusion: Being near a high-voltage electric power line does not affect home values. But reading beyond the headline in the current issue of The Appraisal Journal reveals a different story. Their "no effect" message is a surprise. Electric lines have to go somewhere, of course, but few people relish the idea of living next to big metal towers that carry high-voltage current. It's logical to think there might be at least some downward tug on home values. And plenty of people may be happy to buy a nice house at a bit of a discount because it's next to power lines. Markets tend to sort such things out. But a closer read of the actual report on which the story is based, High-Voltage Transmission Lines: Proximity, Visibility, and Encumbrance Effects, reveals that this is hardly a trustworthy research paper. If appraisers in the field rely on this article, they could produce skewed valuations.
By Elizabeth Razzi | August 4, 2009; 08:42 AM ET | Comments (4)
Geography of Distress
I want to direct you to a valuable package of work produced by a team of writers and editors at the Post. They've produced an interactive map of residential foreclosures by Zip code from January 2007 to June 2009 for the Washington metro area. Hardest hit, they say, is Woodbridge's 2011 Zip code, which had 3,041 homes lost.
By Elizabeth Razzi | July 30, 2009; 03:15 PM ET | Comments (2)
More Signs That Home Prices are Steadying
For the first time since the summer of 2006, the analysts at S&P/Case-Shiller have detected price increases from April to May in 17 of the 20 metro areas they follow.
By Elizabeth Razzi | July 28, 2009; 11:26 AM ET | Comments (1)
Home Sales Increase and The Weekend Poll
The best news coming out of the National Association of Realtors' monthly home sales report? The inventory of listings nationwide in June was down about 15 percent from a year earlier. The median price also happened to be down about 15 percent over the same period. Recovery can't happen until inventories are whittled down to more normal levels--closer to six months' supply vs. the 9.4-months' supply the nation has now, so this is a promising development.
By Elizabeth Razzi | July 24, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (0)
Money Magazine Slices and Dices Cities
Drinks are on you, Arlingtonians! Money Magazine says you're living in the Number Two spot in the country for the "rich and single." (Hermosa Beach, Calif., was tops.) According to Money, almost 42 percent of Arlingtonians are single, and the 2008 median income was $108,815. (Btw, did you know you were rich?)
By Elizabeth Razzi | July 15, 2009; 10:00 AM ET | Comments (1)
Signs of Stabilizing Prices, and the Weekend Poll
Trulia reports today that there are signs that prices in the Washington area are starting to stabilize. The metro area is among those that have had a significant decline in the number of for-sale homes with price reductions over the past month. The same is true for Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Dallas and Baltimore. At the beginning of July, 23 percent of homes on the market in the Washington area have had at least one price reduction, averaging 8 percent. On June 1 according to Trulia, 30 percent of homes on the market had a price reduction, averaging 10 percent.
By Elizabeth Razzi | July 10, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (6)
Mortgage Fraud Rising in the Washington Area
Maryland is on the FBI's top ten list for states with the most mortgage fraud, and the District is among jurisdictions "newly identified as having significant mortgage fraud problems," according to the bureau's 2008 Mortgage Fraud Report, which was just released. Nationwide, the number of mortgage fraud suspicious-activity reports referred to law enforcement increased 36 percent over 2007, the report says. And the government's economic stimulus programs could fuel further increases, according to the FBI.
By Elizabeth Razzi | July 9, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (4)
Younger Home Buyers Will Be Less Wealthy
The Echo Boomers will probably have less money to spend on housing--and other needs--than their predecessors. "The depth of the downturn may, for the first time in at least 40 years, reduce the real median household incomes of each 10-year [age group] relative to its predecessor by 2010," says the report. That new decade happens to start in only seven little months.
By Elizabeth Razzi | June 22, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (4)
What If There Weren't All Those Foreclosures?
Distressed home-sales--foreclosures and short sales--magnified the price decline in California since 2006 by about 5.4 percentage points, according to a research paper from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The study attempts to quantify the effect of distressed home sales on home price measures such as FHFA's House Price Index.
By Elizabeth Razzi | May 28, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (5)
Recovery Could Bring a Flood of Listings
If the real estate market showed real signs of coming back to life, would you put your home up for sale? According to a new survey released by the Zillow realty web site, about 32 percent of homeowners said they would be at least somewhat likely to do so. And Zillow officials said if there really is that much pent-up supply out there, it could seriously weigh down the eventual housing recovery.
By Elizabeth Razzi | May 14, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (3)
Beware Dated Housing Stats
"Anyone here from Northern Virginia?" asked Tom Lawler, founder of Lawler Economic & Consulting in Vienna. He was one of the panelists in that marathon economic summit meeting that Realtors held at the Marriott Wardman Park yesterday. "Northern Virginia is actually starting to bottom," he said. He warned participants that all the home-price indexes rely on dated information.
By Elizabeth Razzi | May 13, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (4)
Prices Down All Around
February was an altogether lousy month for the economy, so who's surprised that local real estate sales stats for the month were equally bad? Median sales prices for all parts of the immediate metro area were down -- by quite a bit -- compared with February 2008, according to Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc., the local multiple listing service. In the District, the median price for all homes, including condos, was down 13 percent to $360,000; Prince George's County, down 24 percent to $220,000; Montgomery County, down 24 percent to $315,500; Northern Virginia (including Fairfax and Arlington Counties, and the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church), down 23 percent to $318,000; Loudoun County, down 22 percent to $294,000. And in the Prince William County, Manassas City and Manassas Park City grouping, price was down 36 percent from last year to $169,500. There was some good news in that Prince...
By Elizabeth Razzi | March 11, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (0)
How's That? Home Sales, Prices, Inventory All Drop
The National Association of Realtors is out this morning with its home-sales report for January. And it shows a surprising mix: The number of existing-home sales, of all types, fell 5.3 percent from December to January. (That number is adjusted to account for seasonal variations; it's down 8.6 percent compared with a year earlier.) The median price fell 3.07 percent in January to $170,300. (That's an annual decrease of 14.8 percent.) What's odd is that total inventory of homes available for sale also fell 2.7 percent. If both sales and inventory are down, that means fewer homes were put on the market in January than in December. Usually the supply of homes for sale starts to drift up in January as sellers anticipate the busier spring market. Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors, said the decline in new listings could in part be because of moratoriums on foreclosures that...
By Elizabeth Razzi | February 25, 2009; 10:32 AM ET | Comments (3)
Another shot of dueling data
The second important set of housing statistics released this morning also shows that home prices in the Washington area declined less steeply at the end of last year than they had been doing. According to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, home prices in the Washington region fell 1.27 percent in the October-December quarter, compared with the 4.74 percent decline logged between July and September. For the year, Washington-area prices fell 12.15 percent, a very slight improvement over the 12.52 percent annual decline that FHFA reported in late November. Those gains aren’t as steep as those shown in the S&P/Case-Shiller report released just an hour earlier. That’s no surprise: Throughout this downturn, the Case-Shiller stats have looked much worse than the government’s numbers. That’s partly because Case-Shiller includes higher-priced homes that don’t qualify for Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loans, as well as loans for borrowers with riskier credit. Nationally, home...
By Maryann Haggerty | February 24, 2009; 11:17 AM ET | Comments (0)
Washington among the few areas where price drops slowed
Standard & Poors/Case-Shiller numbers out this morning show a Washington-area home-price picture that is slightly less bad than it was last month. Prices declined 2.2 percent from November to December, a smidgen better than the 2.5 percent price decline reported the previous month. For the year, Washington prices fell 19.2 percent, very slightly improved over the 19.4 percent annual price decline reported a month ago. The Washington metro area is among just a handful of areas (the others are Boston, Denver, Los Angeles and San Diego) that reported any improvement in the rate of price decline. Nationally, Case-Shiller reports that average prices in the fourth quarter were 18.2 percent lower than a year earlier, the largest decline in the 21 year-history of the index. Prices are back to levels last seen in the third quarter of 2003, and are down 26.7 percent from their peak in the second quarter of...
By Maryann Haggerty | February 24, 2009; 10:12 AM ET | Comments (0)
Lots of economic reports important to housing coming today
A heavy load of economic statistics that affect housing markets is due out Tuesday morning, part of a week heavy on housing stats. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index for December comes out at 9 a.m. This has been a steady bearer of bad news, last month reporting that prices in the Washington metro area fell 2.4 percent from October to November, and 19.4 percent for the year. Then the Federal Housing Finance Agency will release its house price index for the fourth quarter at 10 a.m. The agency’s previous report, issued in late November and covering the July-September quarter, showed that single-family sales prices had fallen 1.8 percent from the second quarter, the largest decrease in the 17-year history of the index. The agency also reported that prices fell 6 percent in the third quarter compared with a year earlier. The Conference Board also will report on...
By Elizabeth Razzi | February 24, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (3)
