Friday, June 29, 2012

More Signs of a Real Estate Recovery

More reports below on strong double-digit gains in home sales for May as high as 32% for Maine, and some increases in median home prices, including a 22% gain in Miami condo prices in May compared to last year.  

1. Utah: May sales up 11.8% from May 2011; 12th month in a row that home sales have grown year-over-year. Realtors also say this is the strongest January-to-May sales period since 2007.

2. MaineMay sales up 32% from May 2011; and median sales price up by 7.4%.

3. Connecticut: May sales up 12.3% from May 2011; median sales price up 2.4%.

4. New Hampshire: May sales up 27.7% from May 2011; median sales price down by 2.4%.

5. Rhode Island: May sales up by 15% from May 2011; median sales price down 7%.

6. Wisconsin: May sales up by 18.9% from May 2011, the 11th consecutive month of a double-digit increase from the same month a year earlier; median sales price up by 1.5%. Through May, sales for 2012 are up 20.2% from the same period last year.

7. Miami: May sales up by 14% from May 2011, median sales price for single family homes up by 6%, condo prices by 22%.

In another positive indicator for the real estate industry, the chart below shows the "S&P Homebuilders SPDR" (XHB), an ETF that replicates the homebuilding portion of the S&P Total Markets Index (blue line), compared to the S&P500 Index (red line) over the last six months.  While the overall stock market (S&P 500) has increased by about 5% since January, the ETF of homebuilders' stocks has increased by 20%.    


6 Comments:

At 6/29/2012 10:07 AM, Blogger bart said...

Still looks like the period from about 1991 to 1997 to me = no real gains, and actual losses even with just a CPI-U adjustment

 
At 6/29/2012 10:15 AM, Blogger polskababe said...

Graph all the recovery charts you want. All I know is that my house in Michigan is still appraised 45% less then when I bought it in 1999. There is no recovery and unless we kick Omaobama out in November, we are all doomed.

 
At 6/29/2012 11:17 AM, Blogger Mark J. Perry said...

The strength of the housing market depends generally on P (price), Q (quanity of homes sold) and TR (P X Q = total sales revenue).

Even when P is flat for homes (or rising only slightly), but Q (# homes sold) is rising by double-digits, that means that the overall sales volume of housing is rising by double-digits. And that's what we've got now is rising home sales and rising housing sales volume, indicating a recovery in the real estate market.

When auto sales (# cars sold) are increasing by 20% year-over-year, it's considered a strong recovery and booming market, and that's what we've got in real estate now.

 
At 6/29/2012 11:38 AM, Blogger Paul said...

My Phoenix real estate friends great frustration right now is lack of inventory. Sales would be even higher if there was enough supply to meet demand here.

 
At 6/29/2012 12:41 PM, Blogger morganovich said...

"And that's what we've got now is rising home sales and rising housing sales volume, indicating a recovery in the real estate market."

that seems like an unusual definition.

if the stock market dropped and then traded a large number of shares at a low level, we would not describe that as a recovery.

real estate is not like manufacturing. it's mostly existing homes changing hands, so the aggregate value of them does not really create anyhting (apart from real estate agent commissions and mortgage origination fees)

why is the total sales value going up a "recovery"

one could call it increased liquidity, but general when one speaks of a "recovery" in an asset market, one means price.

 
At 6/30/2012 10:54 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

Where is Texas? We've been crushing it down here. Thanks for the stats. Looking forward to seeing more about Texas real estate!

 

Post a Comment

<< Home