How Goes Housing? "W

According to HUD, the Homeowner Household rate is up slightly. Underwater Borrowers are down yoy. And Foreclosure Actions are down significantly as well as other stay-in-your-house numbers. Those are all really good things. Even rates are up just moderately from 5.1% to 6.57% over the year. Yes, this increases payments for borrowers but it’s still very low historically.

BAD NUMBERS, BAD RATES

So the big number in the sector is housing sales. And it’s pretty bleak. YOY house numbers, covering 4 categories, are down almost 20%. So total sales went from 7.975 million down to 6.404 million. Very tough numbers. That’s a lot of transactions that aren’t happening anymore.

Interest rates are expected to go up two more times this year. This will weaken the sector more.

REAL ESTATE IS HYPER-LOCAL

Pueblo is different than Colorado Springs is different than Canon City is different than Tallahassee is different than Peoria. Colorado, in general, has become a haven for expats from California so that can help keep our prices up. Yes, we can finally thank a Californian for moving here.

During the Great Recession and bursting of that real estate bubble, as an example, some areas in Arizona were down almost 80%. Truly a massive, massive drop. Also, some Florida areas were down by maybe 50-70 percent. Again, real estate is local so anything goes.

BARGAIN HUNTING, OUR FAVORITE ACTIVITY

Like all of these times follow the sage advice: “Buy when there’s blood in the streets.” (Maybe Rockefeller said that). And there are some opportunities.