Here are some real estate market heat maps based on current supplies of inventory in King and Snohomish counties in April 2011. Red indicates a seller’s market (zero to three months of inventory available for sale), yellow indicates a balanced market (three to six months of inventory), and green (more than six months of inventory) is… Continue Reading
Tag Archives: economy
Pending Home Sales Up 2.1 Percent in February
Housing numbers released this morning show that pending home sales rose 2.1% in February 2011. This number reflects contracts that were actually signed in February, so pending sales are a much better indicator of current consumer sentiment than the Case-Shiller report, which is based on closed sales. (I explained in a recent blog post that because closed sales… Continue Reading
The 2011 Seattle Housing Market – Why the Case-Shiller Numbers Can Be Misleading
The Wall Street Journal ran a front page article today entitled “Why 2011 May Be the End of the Housing Crash.” They note that the Case-Shiller housing numbers that came out in January showing a drop in home sales in December might not have portrayed a realistic picture in terms of looking ahead. I told… Continue Reading
The Seattle Spring 2011 Housing Market Might Be Hotter than You Think It Is
I’m not into ‘spinning’ real estate trends to make them sound positive on this blog (or elsewhere); I can’t imagine looking someone in the eyes and telling them it’s a good time to buy or sell if I think it isn’t. And, I know as well as anyone else that the economy can swing around and… Continue Reading
Employment Numbers – New York Times Interactive Graphic
The New York times has a really interesting interactive graphic today about unemployment trends and how they relate to the end of past recessions. Unemployment rose to 8.9% in April 2009, but this was actually better than expected and has some economists wondering if the slowing pace of new job losses means we’re seeing the… Continue Reading
New York Times Sees Signs of Housing Recovery in CA
Yesterday the New York Times ran an article that talked about how we may be seeing signs of a housing recovery in Sacramento County,which was hit hard and early by the housing crisis. Sales are up 45% from a year ago, and other areas such as Las Vegas and parts of Florida are also showing significant increases…. Continue Reading
U.S. Economic News Round-Up
There’s been some interesting news on the economic front recently: The Good: Today the stock market recouped its losses for 2009 and actually turned positive for the year, apparently primarily due to early reports that stress tests of major banks may offer more detail and less bad news than originally expected. This sent the S.&P.500… Continue Reading
Interactive Housing Price Graphic from the New York Times
The New York Times has a neat interactive graphic today showing home prices in selected U.S. cities since 2000 (based on the Case-Shiller numbers.) The two graph lines compare prices in the selected city to the 20-city average. It’s interesting to click through and see how the graph lines change depending on how each city fared during… Continue Reading
Word on the Street Seattle Real Estate Update – March 31 2009
At our weekly office meeting this morning agents were reporting an overall uptick in activity, especially in the first-time buyer price range of the low $300Ks. One agent received five offers on a home in the $310K range in Bothell, while another had a similarly priced home sell in just a couple of days. Perhaps… Continue Reading
Wall Street Journal’s Summary of Unemployment Numbers
The February unemployment numbers are out and, as expected, it’s not a very pretty picture, with the unemployment rate now at 8.1%. The Wall Street Journal has an interesting overview that takes into account a number of different opinions. Their article is a summary of quotes from over ten different economists reacting to today’s data. You can… Continue Reading
Puget Sound Business Journal Reports on NAR Housing Market Prediction
The Puget Sound Business Journal just ran an article quoting Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, explaining why he thought the Seattle area was not due for a housing crash similar to the one seen in some parts of California. This makes sense, seeing as we didn’t have the enormous price… Continue Reading