Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Wednesday, May 25, 2011, 1:01 PM Comments Off
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Last Saturday morning, I was walking along Broadway on the way to our WOR Eye on Real Estate radio show and saw about a dozen media vehicles with satellite dishes and throngs of media types across the street from 71 Broadway – didn’t connect why they were there until Tuesday when I got a call from CBS TV.
Did a quick interview on the street about an hour before airtime. Was played at noon, 5 and 11 yesterday and then this morning. Wow, slow news day
Does a landlord want to put their tenants through this hassle? No.
Sales of new one-family houses in April 2011 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 323,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 7.3 percent (±16.6%)* above the revised March rate of 301,000, but is 23.1 percent (±9.7%) below the April 2010 estimate of 420,000.
Think about this statistical clarification for a second: the month over month increase was 7.3% ± 16.6%. In other words, the monthly increase jumped as much as 23.9% or fell as much as 9.3%. Sort of ridiculous.
Here are the new home sale hard numbers:
up 7.3% from March 2011 to April 2011 (annualized, seasonally adjusted): We are finally leaving the post-tax credit artificially depressed market however for context, as the chart shows, sales have to DOUBLE to get back to the long term average of 600,000 (ignoring the ‘03 to ‘07 credit boom before we can get optimistic about anything. This incessant ping pong monthly release stream of meaningless nominal monthly changes may very well go on for a number of years.
down 23.8% from April 2010 to April 2011 (annualized, seasonally adjusted): The drop is primarily due to the artificial high level of sales caused by the federal tax credit for first time and existing homebuyers as part of the stimulus program that ended last year at this time.
Prediction: Next month (May) will show wildly high gains in new home sales simply because May 2010 showed a significant drop in sales after the market crashed.
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Tuesday, May 24, 2011, 1:10 PM Comments Off
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I normally don’t pay much attention to this sort of thing, but I just got back from vacation arguably refreshed, and did a double take on this 5/11 ad in Brokers Weekly for the Sheffield condo conversion on West 57th Street (see ad photo to right).
The photo is a full page ad that appears to be taken from the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle several blocks away (see map below). Don’t get me wrong, this is not a run against The Sheffield and I used to live in this area a long time ago.
However the building is located on south side of West 57th Street between 8th and 9th and may be “quintessential” as the headline proclaims, but it is not oriented immediately over Columbus Circle with a Central Park South view to the east as the photo shows.
If they showed a photo of Paris or some other abstract location, it would have worked for me. I see the purpose of marketing as communicating an image or brand, and I get the point of linking their location to Central Park, but they need to swap out the photo with something else.
Todd is spot on with his commentary on the growing phenomenon of tax appeals as the economy flounders.
The increase in this number is the appropriate and predictable response to the devastating economic events of the last three years, and their impact on homeowners.
Government spending always lags such a downturn since it is much harder and less politically popular to address. Spending expanded during the boom largely due to real estate tax related revenue growth (property, transfer, permits, construction/housing related jobs, etc.)
Large local government shortfalls, with the lag in response to the change in economic conditions, is the next big thing the US will have to grapple with.
It’s particular interesting how private sector employment is finally rising but being partially offset by government employment declines. That’s the lag.
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Monday, May 23, 2011, 12:14 PM Comments Off
Here’s a sobering City Journal (love the pub and iPad app!) article on the state of the “The Tappan Zee Is Falling Down” – the replacement of the Tappan Zee Bridge crossing the Hudson River and connecting Westchester and Rockland County New York.
The Tappan Zee exemplifies the state of America’s infrastructure in 2011. We rely on it more than ever: each year, 51 million cars, trucks, and buses traverse the seven-lane “Tap,” as locals call it. More people commute over it than through the Lincoln or the Holland Tunnel, both of which cross the river to the south. Yet New York outgrew the bridge decades ago, with today’s traffic far exceeding the structure’s designed capacity. Worse, the Tappan Zee is a disaster in slow motion.
The bridge has several decades too old and undergoes continuous renovations. I thought the stimulus package would accelerate construction of roads and bridges but alas, the process is bogged down by the same federal government that brought us the stimulus package.
Its a key regional asset that impacts the economy and as an extension, the housing market.
Bridge naming: Tappan Indian tribe, + Dutch word for “sea”.
Sage commentary on the state of housing – a solid discussion.
The U.S. housing market showed more signs of weakness Tuesday with the fall of new home construction by more than 10 percent and new building permits by 4 percent. Judy Woodruff discusses the fallout from the disappointing new housing report with Inside Mortgage Finance’s Guy Cecala and The Washington Post’s Dina ElBoghdady.
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Tuesday, May 10, 2011, 11:40 AM Comments Off
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I am reporting on the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore metro area housing markets in addition to our NYC metro area and Miami research – for RealEstate Business Intelligence (RBI), the research, analytics arm of MRIS, the largest MLS in the country. It is released 10 days after the close of each period, about 3 weeks before the NAR pending home sale index covering the same period.
…There were 2,712 signed contracts in the Baltimore metro area for the month of April, 21.8% below the tax credit-fueled surge of 3,466 in the same month last year in the waning moments of the federal stimulus program and 5.1% below the 2,857 total of the prior month. April pending sales did not keep pace with March pending sales largely due to last month’s release of pent-up demand from the lull in activity in the second half of 2010 caused by the expiration of the tax credit last spring. The April 2011 median sales price was $215,000, 6.5% less than $230,000 in April 2010 but 7.5% above $200,000 in the prior month. The first four months of 2011 resulted in the four lowest monthly median sales prices for the region since January 2005…
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Tuesday, May 10, 2011, 11:34 AM Comments Off
[click to open release]
I am reporting on the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore metro area housing markets in addition to our NYC metro area and Miami research – for RealEstate Business Intelligence (RBI), the research, analytics arm of MRIS, the largest MLS in the country. It is released 10 days after the close of each period, about 3 weeks before the NAR pending home sale index covering the same period.
…April buyers and sellers in the Washington, D.C. metro area signed 5,170 purchase contracts, the second highest April since 2006. The total was second only to the April 2010 surge in activity related to the final days of the federal homebuyer tax credit. Pending sales in April fell to 5,170, 4.8% short of the heavy volume reached in March, partly a result of last monthÕs release of pent-up demand accumulated during the post-tax credit expiration lull in the second half of 2010. The April 2011 median sales price was $334,000, nominally below $335,000 reached in same month last year and 4.4% above $320,000 in March. The month over month increase was consistent with seasonal patterns…
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Friday, May 6, 2011, 5:00 AM 1 Comment
Barry is a friend and was an amazing guest speaker at our most recent MillerQA Housing Market Seminar. One of the smartest analysts I know.
Dan Gross, one of the interviewers, is a very sharp economic writer who just joined Yahoo as their economics/finance editor. Both Dan and Barry have been on my podcast (I’m on a brief hiatus).
I completely agree that we are looking at a long window for housing to fully recover. And it will recover – but it will take many years to work through the bad decisions of the recent past. It’s been five years since housing peaked and we are only halfway through working off REOs.
New lending is AAA but the legacy issues are killing us.
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Thursday, May 5, 2011, 9:11 PM Comments Off
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The San Francisco Fed has a consumer friendly web site: The Economy: Crisis & Response. It’s quite good. Take some time and explore.
Of the many charts they offer, the chart above is my favorite and something we always seem to forget. Housing, like the economy is cyclical. Prices go up and prices go down. Doh!
Had a fun interview with Tom and Sara this morning on the always MUST watch/listen Bloomberg Surveillance. We talked housing, rentals, vacancy and inventory. An added bonus was the addition of Adam Davidson – co-founder and co-host of Planet Money... Read More
