The Federal Reserve had this to report about the residential real estate market:
The link to the Beige Book Report.Many Districts reported moderation in residential real estate activity, although from high level. Boston, New York, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, and Minneapolis reported some cooling in real estate markets. While some of the hottest markets in the San Francisco District have cooled--for example, Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area--other areas, such as Oregon and especially Hawaii, have reportedly heated up further. Kansas City and Dallas continued to see strong housing markets. And construction and repair work remained brisk in Louisiana and Mississippi.
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Hawaii is down. Read a report (thehousingbubble2.blogspot.com? or maybe housingpanic.blogspot.com?) that said median home price was down @ 100K. That's a healthy drop!
ReplyDeleteI found an interesting (related) article on CNNmoney that ranked cities' housing prices from most "overvalued" to most "undervalued". The range was from +84% to -23%
ReplyDeleteI'd love your thoughts on how accurate you feel the numbers listed are.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/29/real_estate/buying_selling/handicapping_housing_markets/index.htm
Cathy - I read this article a day or two ago. It shows the DC area at 37% (I believe) overpriced. Boston as 17 or 18% and Naples, Florida as the most overpriced at 84%. These are the ones I remember because this is where my exposure is.
ReplyDeleteObviously, I have a vested interest and, therefore a hope (prayer?) that the analysis is wrong. Hard to say. Can these numbers be extrapolated back to see how accurately they would have predicted the last 2 cycles (1980 and 1990)? That would be informative.
I heard an interesting interview on NPR today talking about the Japanese economic stagnation and the interviewee (I didn't hear his name!) said that he found the Tokyo real estate bubble similar to the San Francisco real estate situation of today. He said he even heard the same arguments as to why the prices of 1989 in Tokyo could never go down, only up (limited space, highly desirable, cultured city, important financial center,no new land being built...). Then real estate crashed, and now, 16 years later, the prices still aren't back to where they were in 1989. Very interesting.
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