Housing Doom

Holiday weekends are not a popular weekend to list a home, generally speaking.  For some reason though, there has been a surge since yesterday afternoon.  L sent us the following:

Total number of properties found: 50292 4/5/2007 3:40 PM

Total number of properties found: 50381 4/6/2007 9:43 AM
 
Total number of properties found: 50441 4/6/2007 11:28 AM
 
Total number of properties found: 50559 4/6/2007 3:13 PM

Total number of properties found: 50616 4/6/2007 5:02PM

That’s 324 properties in just over a 24 hour period- on a holiday weekend.

To put this in perspective, in January, listings increased by an average of 82/day.  In February it was 70/day.
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Op-Ed Friday, and the future is bright.  I know this, as I discovered this sunny "Economic Outlook" at Realtor.com.  You know that this is really accurate forecasting, as it says at the bottom, "Assumptions and simulations by NAR’s Dr. David Lereah, chief economist, and Dr. Lawrence Yun, senior forecast economist."  The housing predictions are toward the bottom.

Knowing in what high esteem Doomers hold these economists, I graphed their predictions:

Percent Appreciation/Quarter

Their predictions don’t look terribly far off to me, other than it appears that the negative sign was inadvertently omitted from 2Q07 onwards.

Even though we realize that it is hard to argue with the forecasting of "experts," we here at Doom would love to hear your predictions, read your links, and enjoy your comments and insights.
Read the rest of this entry »

Remember when housing was the new paradigm with the limitless upside?  Now commercial office space is the new "new paradigm" for Phoenix.

Last September, the Real Estate Journal reported that the Cooling Housing Market in Phoenix Doesn’t Dampen the Commercial Sector:

Phoenix’s rapidly cooling housing market hasn’t damped the region’s commercial real-estate market. From a new football stadium for the Arizona Cardinals with a design inspired by a desert cactus to more than 16 million square feet of offices, warehouses and retail stores slated to be built in the region this year, the area’s commercial sectors are expanding at a brisk pace amid rising rents and falling vacancy rates.

Some 5.3 million square feet of office buildings are scheduled to be built in the region this year, about double the amount delivered in 2005, according to Property & Portfolio Research Inc., a Boston-based research firm. Meanwhile, some 7.4 million square feet of new retail space is to be delivered this year, up 26% from last year.

The commercial growth has been fueled by a continuing surge in population and employment, says Marshall J. Vest, an economist at the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona. New arrivals first purchase homes, and now are helping to drive demand for places to shop and work, sending rents higher and triggering more commercial projects that previously didn’t make sense economically, Mr. Vest says. Over the next five years, office, retail, warehouse and apartment rents are all expected to grow at above-average rates, PPR says.

Apparently, unlike the residential side of the industry, commercial was to remain "bullet-proof."

Fast forward to April 2007.  In Wednesday’s Arizona Republic:

Read the rest of this entry »