Early reports are just starting to come in for May real estate sales, and it's already starting to look like a blockbuster sales month.
Double-digit sales gains have been reported so far in:
1) Seattle by 23% vs. last year ("The most dramatic we’ve seen in at least five years. While home sales have been on the rise for months, the previous gains in homes prices had been minor. May’s real estate statistics have solidified the trend and pushed it into overdrive."),
2) Pittsburgh by 20%,
3) Albuquerque by 29%,
4) the Denver-area by 24%,
5) the Memphis area by 25%,
6) Chicago by 19.2%,
7) Nashville by 28.5%,
8) Boston by 28%,
9) Charlotte by 18.2,
10) Iowa by 14%,
11) Birmingham by 21%,
12) Milwaukee by 30%,
13) Charleston by 24%,
14) Baltimore by 13%,
15) Minneapolis by 20.5%,
16) Des Moines by 18%,
17) Champaign County (IL) by 26%.
Double-digit sales gains have been reported so far in:
1) Seattle by 23% vs. last year ("The most dramatic we’ve seen in at least five years. While home sales have been on the rise for months, the previous gains in homes prices had been minor. May’s real estate statistics have solidified the trend and pushed it into overdrive."),
2) Pittsburgh by 20%,
3) Albuquerque by 29%,
4) the Denver-area by 24%,
5) the Memphis area by 25%,
6) Chicago by 19.2%,
7) Nashville by 28.5%,
8) Boston by 28%,
9) Charlotte by 18.2,
10) Iowa by 14%,
11) Birmingham by 21%,
12) Milwaukee by 30%,
13) Charleston by 24%,
14) Baltimore by 13%,
15) Minneapolis by 20.5%,
16) Des Moines by 18%,
17) Champaign County (IL) by 26%.
And land sales in the Las Vegas Valley hit a two-year high in the first quarter
with $40.3 million in total sales volume, a 38 percent increase from
$29.1 million in the year-ago quarter.
It's starting to look like there might actually be a housing recovery underway; we're certainly past the bottom of the market.
It's starting to look like there might actually be a housing recovery underway; we're certainly past the bottom of the market.
I spoke with a salesman at a nearby housing development (north Seattle suburbs) and he said he sold 5 houses the previous week. Normally that would be considered good for one *month*
ReplyDelete^
ReplyDeleteThat was this last weekend I asked him, BTW.
Check out the 5th graph at this link. Huge surge.
LINK
For Sale signs have really sprouted, all over my neighborhood in Houston, but I'm not seeing any Sold, or Sale Pending signs.
ReplyDeletei think there is something fishy with these numbers. they looked like this for april as well, but the more sophisticated indexes, like core logic, are showing gains an order of magnitude lower.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.corelogic.com/about-us/researchtrends/home-price-index.aspx
april was up 1.1% yoy.
i generally prefer case shiller and will wait to see that one before really making up my mind on this, but these 20% gain numbers look very inconsistent witht he big indexes.
here is what i suspect is happening: housing mix has shifted.
higher end properties are selling. their higher prices are being mistaken for huge price jumps by unsophisticated local folks who are just taking the average price of all houses sold and comparing to a year ago without making sure they are comparing apples to apples.
such an index would wildly overstate price gains if the mix shifted to bigger, higher end homes in better neighborhoods.
the reason CS is so good is it only compares houses and condos to themselves, eliminating this mix shift issue.
the huge divergence between the CL report (and those of trulia and zillow) makes me pretty suspect of these local reports.
i have not seen any reputable national reports (CL, CS, NAR) that show gains anything like these.
Note: these are double digit gains in home sales not home prices.
ReplyDeleteahh, my mistake.
ReplyDeletehowever, you did say that home prices were up10% in april in your prior post.
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2012/05/home-prices-increase-in-april-by-101.html
i realize that was NAR data, but i'm not sure they normalize for size, neighborhood, quality etc.
the corelogic data showed a price move an order of magnitude lower.
i think we need to wait for case shiller, which i think is the best index of the bunch to resolve this april disparity, but the big gap in these 2 makes me cautions about swallowing that 10% number.
Keep in mind that Case Schiller's latest release is an average of of January-March. The average date of the data would be February 2012. It would be 3 months behind the May housing sales. The March-May 2012 average won't be available until the end of August due to the 3 month lag.
ReplyDeleteYou can add Southwestern Pennsylvania as another market with double digit sales.
ReplyDeleteIn the 13-county region served by the West Penn Multi-List, the number of residential homes placed under agreement increased 19.63 percent (4,144 homes versus 3,464) in May 2012 versus May 2011, while average home sale price increased 10.63 percent ($173,443 versus $156,780).
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/southwestern-pennsylvania-real-estate-market-blossoms-in-may-2012-06-05
we have inconsistent, almost contravening indicators these days and while I defer to folks like Morg as to how to properly scrutinize ... I'd just observe that we still have high unemployment, but high corporate profits and increases in housing sales.
ReplyDeleteHow does that add up?
it doesn't.
My admittedly uneducated guess is that the traditional indicators do not "work" for the kind of economy that we have now.
Maybe they never really worked but the numbers "seemed" reasonable.
When you have multiple different indicators seemingly saying contradictory things... well...pffftt
Henry: Thanks, I think that's the same as my link to what I called "Pittsburgh" area sales, maybe it's more accurate to say "SW Pennsylvania."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nowandfutures.com/images/dataquick_real_estate_weekly.png
ReplyDeletePrices are certainly up per the weekly Dataquick info - and whether it's a bottom is way too early to call, and unlikely in my opinion.
The 90s prices were almost level from the recession all the way up to about 1997.
No decent inventory in better areas of Fort Lauderdale...new listings "gone in 60 seconds". Extreme competition for scarce foreclosures from would be landlords.
ReplyDelete