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[Please excuse my recent blogger fatigue]

New September MRIS Numbers

The new monthly numbers for September 2006 are out from the MRIS the multiple listing service for the area. YoY = Year over Year, that is the comparison between September 2006 and September 2005. These numbers include all housing units ( not just single family residences but also condos and co-ops).

Northern Virginia (Fairfax County, Fairfax City, Arlington County, Alexandria City, & Falls Church City, VA (NVAR))

• Median Price: $445K
  
• Median Sales Price YoY: -7.29%
• Average Sales Price YoY: -5.71%
• Total Units Sold YoY: -34%
• Average Days on Market YoY: 192%
  
• Active Listings YoY: 67%
  

Baltimore City Area (Anne Arundel, Baltimore City/County, Carroll, Harford, Howard (BALT AREA) )

• Median Price: $268k
  
• Median Sales Price YoY: 3.08%
• Average Sales Price YoY: 1.69%
• Total Units Sold YoY: -30%
• Average Days on Market YoY: 63%
  
• Active Listings YoY: 81%
  

Washington, DC (just the District of Columbia, no suburbs)

• Median Price: $455k
  
• Median Sales Price YoY: 8.59%
• Average Sales Price YoY: 10.76%
• Total Units Sold YoY: -15%
• Average Days on Market YoY: 94%
  
• Active Listings YoY: 74%

Please note: The median price in DC was $455K in September 2006 which was a huge jump from August 2006 was $397k or July when it was at $415K. I am not sure what caused such a dramatic increase in the median in DC. If you have a theory please post. Verify it using stats from MRIS.

Prince George's County, MD

• Median Price: $330K
  
• Median Sales Price YoY: 6.45%
• Average Sales Price YoY: 6.47%
• Total Units Sold YoY: -28%
• Average Days on Market YoY: 88%
  
• Active Listings YoY: 113%
  

Montgomery County, MD

• Median Price: $435K
  
• Median Sales Price YoY: 1.4%
• Average Sales Price YoY: 1.52%
• Total Units Sold YoY: -29%
• Average Days on Market YoY: 148%
  
• Active Listings YoY: 77%
  

Loudoun County, VA

• Median Price: $440K
  
• Median Sales Price YoY: -9.28%
• Average Sales Price YoY:-4.79%
• Total Units Sold YoY: -41%
• Average Days on Market YoY: 230%
• Active Listings YoY: 50%
  

For more numbers on jurisdictions not mentioned here please go to MRIS Market Statistics. The housing market in the Washington, DC area is experiencing a significant decline. The above numbers are nominal dollars, looking at real dollars (inflation adjusted) the dollar declines are even greater. The real estate agents must be hurting now as the total dollar sales volume for Northern Virginia is down 38 compared to September 2005. The market will continue to decline as we head into the fall and winter months. The spring / summer boom, which many in the housing industrial complex had hoped for, failed to materialize. In the metropolitan DC area a declining housing market is reality.

Florida Leads Nation in Foreclosures

We know Florida is bubblicious. Now, it is the leader in foreclosure activity.

Florida is leading the nation in foreclosure activity, according to a report by Bargain Network.

The report said that Florida has approximately 28,000 properties in some form of foreclosure, accounting for 27 percent of the nation's total. With one new foreclosure filing for every 254 households, the state's foreclosure rate was more than four times the national average.

Yikes! Expect the foreclosure rate in Florida to rise further. Florida's homeowners are especially vulnerable to foreclosure because of high hurricane insurance rates. The Real Estate Industrial Complex bears a large degree of responsibility for this debacle.

BubbleSphere Roundup

Keith's Housing Panic Blog has two wonderful posts attacking the REIC (Real Estate Industrial Complex. Realogy (owner of Century 21 etc) launches housing bubble propaganda counter-attack and another post one attacking the fully discredited David Lereah. "It's been amazing (and funny) to see the corrupt David Lereah spin lately. Now he's a the "we've been anticipating a price correction" stage of lying." It is impressive how often Keith posts on his blog.

Housing Prediction: Starts, Completions, Sales (Calculated Risk)
Greenspan: Worst may be over for Housing (Calculated Risk)
Support Your Local Bubble Blogger! (Housing Doom)
Breaking News- Kara Homes Bankrupt (BubbleTrack)
Commercial Real Estate: The Next Domino? (Sacramento Land(ing))

If you are addicted to the housing bubble news there is now a Bubble News Network (BNN) which features video news. Excellent!

Next FOMC Meeting ends October 25th. Stay tuned! [Another Pause.]

Pictures from Bubblicious Baltimore

Today, a friend and I traveled to bubblicious Baltimore. According to the OFHEO 2Q government report the 5 year price appreciation rate for the Baltimore, MD metropolitan area is 99%.

The charming 300 block of South Madiera Street in the Butchers Hill neighborhood. There are 5 rowhouses for sale on this block.

Station North Townhouses being built. Prices from the mid 300's. "Along a block of North Calvert street, surrounded by crumbling and boarded-up rowhouses, homebuyers are shelling out $400,000 and more for luxury townhouses sprouting on the site of long-demolished buildings" (Baltimore Sun 1/15/06)

Lovely rowhouse NOT for sale in Butcher's Hill.

Rundown houses in Baltimore. Incidentally, there was an onsite public auction for a rowhouse about two blocks from here.

500K rowhouses in Butcher's Hill located.

Rundown empty lot across directly in front of 500K rowhouses
(pictured two pictures above).

Quarry Lake development in suburban Baltimore

Condos going up along the Baltimore Harbor. [View from Albermarle Street in Little Italy]

Rowhouses in Greektown.

The Bubblicious Pole

Located at Saintsbury Plaza at the Vienna Metro Station
in Northern Virginia (Suburban Washington, DC)
From the low 300's [Thanks to the citizen reporter who found this]

David Lereah Respond's To Moody's Bubblicious Report

David Lereah responded to Moody's negative report on Housing at Tipping Point:

David Lereah, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, disagrees with the severity of the price downturn in the report.

"It's possible we could go under zero, if you include prices of new homes" along with sales data for existing homes, he said. "For existing homes, I'm still predicting that prices will be above [last year] by 2 percent."

Nonetheless, Lereah agreed that broad price declines in some regions are unavoidable.

"I don't think I would use the word `crash,'" he said. "When you use a word like that, it's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy in the housing market. These are people's homes. Their retirement is depending on it."

Is Mr. Lereah saying that if people's retirement did not depend on the housing market then he would use the term 'crash' like Moody's did? If the housing market was indeed based on fundamentals, in the bubble markets using the term 'crash' would not become a 'self-fulfilling prophecy.'

Mr. Lereah, you were one of the housing cheerleaders who encouraged people down this dangerous path. You even wrote two books promoting the housing boom. As Ben Jones wrote "Maybe the NAR should have been urging caution the past few years instead of cheering prices higher."

Realtors Worried About Lawsuits

Errors & Omissions Insurance

Sunshine on The Housing Bubble

Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis: "Sunshine is the best disinfectant"

NAR Releases Market-by-Market Home Price Analysis Reports

The National Assocaition of Realtors (NAR) released 100 Market-by-Market Home Price Analysis Reports for August 2006.

"Get insight into the fundamentals and direction of housing markets in 119 of the nation's largest metropolitan regions. Each of the 11-page downloadable market reports evaluates a number of factors affecting home prices:"

• The health of the local job market
• The prevalence of "non-traditional" home financing options
• Debt-to-income ratios
• Net migration patterns

"These reports reflect data available through August 2006."

I have not yet reviewed these reports. More to come. Reader comments on these reports is highly encouraged. Hopefully they will be better then the discredited anti-bubble reports.