National Real Estate Economics
The National Association of Realtors put a report out that claims the United States had a 3.1% increase in existing-home sales in July (08). This was a nice, healthy rise from the previous month which had been on a steady decline since December of 2007. This result along with the fact that interest rates remain below 6.7% is leading some professionals to claim that we’ve hit the “trough” (the bottom of the market decline, only to gain strength from there).
Harm Bandholz, a New York-based economist with UniCredit was quoted as saying, “The good news is the trough is behind us”. I’m not so sure that I agree with Mr. Bandholz, particularly since Alan Greenspan just claimed mid-2009 as the bottom of the trough in a quote 2 weeks ago. This could be a sign of recovery, but I don’t think we should put things on cruise control quite yet.
One method of measuring the real estate market’s well-being is by looking at total inventory. Now let’s just put aside the fact that thousands of Americans would put their homes on the market for sale if they thought for a second that they could break even, or shall I even say, profit! Let’s just talk about what IS for sale. Currently there are enough homes listed to constitute 11.2 months of inventory. What does this mean? It means that if no more homes were listed and the buying continued at its current rate, then it would take 11.2 months for the entire inventory to be consumed. That’s a lot of inventory. Actually, it’s double the typical national average.
The good news for NFSTI Certified REO Specialists is that a large fraction of these properties are foreclosures that are being listed by REO specialists around the country. With the positive outlook looming on the horizon, it is my belief that many REO specialists are going to produce great results over the next few years. Let’s just learn from our predecessor’s mistakes and do our best to ensure that these sales don’t end up on the default list again 2 years from now.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: bank, bpo, default, foreclosure, greenspan, lender, nar, national association of Realtors, reo, unicredit, wall street journal
