The information currently provided isn't inappropriate -- just incomplete. Imagine how valuable those figures would be if we could combine them with data, broken down by region, on how long those houses spent on the market, or the variance between their asking price and final sales price. The Realtors have all that information readily on hand, and those metrics would better help us assess whether each housing region was waking up, or still comatose.

Take a look at this ridiculous and self-contradictory release, titled "Mixed Results for October Existing-Home Sales; Mortgages Improving." The NAR follows that front-line fib with what I can only characterize as a big, fat, stinking lie. The first line begins, "Single-family existing-home sales were stable in October."

"Mixed" results? "Stable" sales? There's nothing mixed about a nearly 21% drop from October 2006. There's nothing stable about a housing inventory that has jumped 15.4% year over year, so that the months'-supply number screamed upward by 46%, meaning there is now an incredible 10.8 months' worth of homes on the market.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

If all-things-housing is your idea of fun, then Realius has the game for you: Guess the value of various homes -- California only at this point.

MortgageNewsDaily.com calls the Price Me Now game "the equivalent of fantasy baseball or football for the real estate wonk."

Realius notes in its blog that you're guessing what the selling price will be on homes that are still listed:

The object of the game is to guess what you think a home will sell for. As the game plays today, you’re not actually scored against how close your guess is to the List Price. The interface strongly suggests this, but that’s not the case. In fact, your accuracy is based on how close you are to the moving average of all of the user guesses.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 3:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

At the current pace of sales, it would take 16 months to move all the unsold single-family homes in California, the association said. Yes. Nearly a year and a half. That's up from six months this time in 2006.

From the association's press release:

“Financing issues have dogged entry-level buyers since early 2007, but they spilled over into the middle and upper-tier markets in the last few months,” said C.A.R. President William E. Brown. “The decline in sales at the upper end of the market contributed to a significant decline in the statewide median price as even well-qualified borrowers had difficulty securing financing.”

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Maryland's one of them.

The company, which put out a research note and held a conference call last week on the state of the housing and mortgage markets, says the rest of the "worrisome" areas are California, Florida, Nevada, Arizona, Virginia, New Jersey and Washington, D.C.

The first four are frequently mentioned by economists are states feeling the slump keenly after riding the boom. The rest -- not so much, though there were plenty of boomtime price hikes here too.

Goldman Sachs' forecast is based on the long-term relationship between prices and the change in disposable income and long-term interest rates. It says that model suggests price appreciation is due in just two states: Michigan and Ohio. (Interestingly, these are also mentioned by many economists -- as states in trouble, because they're seeing tons of foreclosures. But they didn't get the boomtime run-up in prices.)

Thanks to Calculated Risk and Baltimore Housing Bubble for catching this. There's some discussion about the prediction in my story today on the OFHEO house price index.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

In this final installment of the five-video series, Mel Stachura offers a look at one of the plans for the Little Italy rowhouse he's helping rehab. Yes, that's it on the wall there.

Thanks to Stachura and homeowner Tianne Baker for participating, to Sun tech whiz John Lindner for editing and to you all for watching.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

In both cases, the third-quarter drops are small -- less than half a percent -- though economists note that the index doesn't capture the part of the mortgage market feeling the credit crunch most: jumbo loans for pricey homes and subprime loans aimed at folks with imperfect credit.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 8:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Drop me a line at jamie.smith.hopkins (at) baltsun (dot) com.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
                    

"Companies have had to change their programs and policies and step it up to keep their employees mobile," says Cris Collie, chief executive of the Employee Relocation Council, an industry group. Mr. Collie's group estimates that it cost about $62,000 on average to move an employee this year. Of that amount, $15,000 went for so-called loss on sale assistance, where companies make up the difference when employees sell their homes at a loss. Last year, loss-on-sale assistance averaged about $9,000.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Many subsidized rentals in Maryland are 15 to 20 years old. Not only do they need work, they're at or near the point that their owners can opt out of the subsidy and switch to higher, market-rate rents. ...

"This is really a proactive move to make sure we don't lose what we do have," said Bill Ariano, deputy director of the housing department's Community Development Administration. He said it is the state's first large-scale preservation effort "because this is the first time we've really seen this kind of potential problem looming."

 

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 9:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

In this fourth of five video clips on rehabbing, Mel Stachura offers a handy tip about when you have to bring something up to code -- and when you don't.

Tomorrow: No, I won't spoil it. You have to see it. It makes me grin every time.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Most Districts pointed to further increases in the inventory of available homes, with the earlier tightening of credit conditions for mortgage lending continuing to create barriers for some buyers. ... The pace of homebuilding remained very low in general, and builders continued to shelve projects and lay off workers in many areas; contacts generally do not expect a significant pickup in homebuilding until well into next year at the earliest.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 8:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Yes. You can now pay a fee to resolve a dispute about real estate that doesn't, in the physical sense of the word, exist.

From the press release:

"Mediation offers the parties an opportunity to resolve their concerns in a respectful, creative way that often keeps the relationship intact afterward," said Ronnie Howell of Open Dialogue. "In contrast, arbitration offers the parties the opportunity to present their concerns to an individual who ultimately renders a decision, much in the same way a judge might do. With both processes the parties are often able to avoid what may be a costly, messy, lengthy, unhappy experience in the judicial system, especially when judicial systems aren't quite sure how to handle virtual world issues yet."

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 5:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

I'll have a story in tomorrow's paper about the announcement, and why it's coming now.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 5:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

They never put any money into the deal, they pulled out $333,000 in cash, and they got to live in Turtle Ridge for 3 years. Not a bad deal — for them. ...

If you knew prices were going to collapse, and the lifestyle was not sustainable (like many on this board did,) would you have done it anyway? When you see the lives led by people like today’s owners, it is not difficult to see why so many chose that life.

Thanks to Jay Hancock for pointing it out. (If you click on the link, you'll need to scroll down a bit.)

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The median price fell 5.1 percent to $207,800. Here too the NAR blamed mortgages -- fewer sales in expensive areas pulled down the median price, it said.

The association's mantra in recent months has been that real estate is all local, local, local, and in its press release today it repeated that message:

NAR President Richard Gaylord, a broker with RE/MAX Real Estate Specialists in Long Beach, Calif., emphasized that all real estate is local. “Keep in mind that home prices are up in 93 out of 150 metro areas, and there is a lot of confusion in the market from reports about national data. Broadly speaking, home prices in most areas are up modestly or fairly stable,” he said. “Areas with population or job growth are seeing the strongest home price gains.”

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

In this third of five video clips, Mel Stachura talks about the difference between owner-occupier rehabs and investor rehabs -- and why he thinks it's a much better time to try the latter than it was during the housing boom.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Tough summer: The newest numbers from the S&P/Case-Shiller house price index, released today, show a 4.5 percent decline in nationwide prices in the third quarter vs. the same time a year ago. Prices in the July-through-September period were also down from the second quarter -- 1.7 percent, specifically.

Robert J. Shiller, chief economist at MacroMarkets LLC and the Shiller who gives the index one-third of its name, said in a statement that the price drop was the largest quarter-over-quarter decline in the 21 years of the index. The year-over-year drop is "its second consecutive record low."

“Consistent with prior 2007 reports, there is no real positive news in today’s data," Shiller said.

Index officials also released September figures for major metro areas, a list that does not include Baltimore. (Sticks in the craw, that does.) The Washington area saw prices fall 6.6 percent vs. September 2006, according to the index.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

All right, it's probably not amazing, it's certainly not one-time-only, and there's no money back because it's free. But I stand by splendiferous.

By popular request, I've crunched the October home sales tracked by Metropolitan Regional Information Systems so you can look at ZIP codes throughout the Baltimore area and see how sales numbers and average prices changed vs. a year earlier. (See this post for the big picture.)

If you're interested in seeing the ZIP codes ordered by the change in price, click HERE. If you're interested in ZIP codes ordered by change in sales, click HERE.

Once you have the Excel file open, of course, you can order things around exactly the way you want -- makes for a nice change from regular life.

I've tried to keep the apples-to-kumquats comparisons to a minimum by including only those ZIP codes with at least five home sales in October 2007 and at least five in October 2006. Even so, there are bound to be statistical oddities in areas where the homes sold last month were very different than those sold a year earlier.

With those words of caution in mind, have fun wonking! And do let me know if you notice anything interesting.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 9:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

In this second of five video clips, Little Italy homeowner Tianne Baker talks about why she decided to buy a house and tear it apart before moving in.

Keep those rehabbing tips coming, guys! You can't beat the voice of experience.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 4:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

A new analysis -- by which I mean, of course, number-crunching and general squinting here at Wonk central -- shows that the big drop in Baltimore-area home sales in October was a pain felt in the vast majority of communities.

Here's a look at trends at the ZIP code level, taken from deals tracked by Metropolitan Regional Information Systems. I'm including the 87 ZIP codes that had at least five sales in October 2007 and at least five sales in October 2006:

SALES TRENDS:

Number of ZIP codes where home sales fell: 70

Number where sales rose: 10

Number with no change in sales figures: 7

PRICE TRENDS: 

Number where prices increased: 35

Number with no change in price: 8

And finally, some FUN (or not so fun) FACTS:

Number of ZIP codes where average prices topped $500,000: 10

Number of ZIP codes with average prices under $200,000: 14

Number of the 10 most expensive ZIP codes that saw a decrease in average prices: 2

Number of the 10 cheapest ZIP codes that saw a decrease in average prices: 8

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 4:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The new program -- or rather new-ish, since it was quietly retooled months ago -- pays up to $5,000 toward settlement costs for qualifying applicants buying a home that's either within 10 miles of their work or within the same county or city. It's part of the House Keys for Employees initiative.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Admit it: You've thought about rehabbing. You have a house that could use some work, or you fantasized about buying, fixing and flipping a rowhome during the boom, or perhaps you just wondered how on earth people do it. (Maybe you've actually rehabbed a place yourself, in which case you've thought a whole lot about rehabbing, up to and including "what have I gotten myself into.")

Whichever of these yous you are, I think you'll enjoy this first-ever video version of How-to Monday, in which Mel Stachura of Urban Rehab Consultants in Baltimore talks about a project he's working on for a Little Italy homeowner.

This is the first of a series of videos that will be going up all week to give you a glimpse into a top-to-bottom home rehab in progress, along with words of advice from both Stachura -- the project manager -- and homeowner Tianne Baker, who is acting as general contractor. (More on the differences between "project manager" and "general contractor" in tomorrow's video.)

It's just a taste of what you'd need to keep in mind before starting a rehab: I couldn't hope to cover it all if I had a year and a book contract. As Baker says, "These are complicated projects. You never know what you're going to find when you open up one of these old houses."

Three cheers for John Lindner, Sun video editor extraordinaire, who pieced together my questionable camera work into something I hope you'll find worth watching.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
                    

Specifically the pages on the Great Depression.

He says the U.S. has "to consider the possibility that the housing price downturn will eventually be as big as that of the last truly big decline, from 1925 to 1933, when prices fell by a total of 30 percent."

So far, Shiller believes, "actions that have already been taken are not impressive." He suggests thinking big.

Among the changes made to deal with real estate troubles during the Great Depression, he notes, was the formation of the Home Owners Loan Corporation "to sponsor loans for those having trouble making payments, replacing short-term mortgages — then typically five years with a final balloon payment that was often hard for homeowners to afford — with much more sensible 15-year ones that were fixed-rate and self-amortizing."

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

According to ShopperTrak RCT Corp., which tracks sales at more than 50,000 retail outlets, total sales rose 8.3 percent to about $10.3 billion on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, compared with $9.5 billion on the same day a year ago. ShopperTrak had expected an increase of no more than 4 percent to 5 percent.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Crossing my fingers that it shows up as well on the blog as it looked on my computer. One never knows.

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 8:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)