Housing Doom Housing Bubble Blog

Another sad real estate tale from my hometown of Gilbert: [Thanks to everyone who sent links on this]

PHOENIX (AP) — Gilbert-based Re/Max 2000, one of the Phoenix area’s largest real estate brokerages, shut down its 13 offices this week, as the housing bust hits a city that was once one of the nation’s hottest markets.

Robert Kline, who started the franchise in 2000 and grew the business through acquisitions, said his decision to close was made after a particularly rough patch in December, when it became clear he no longer could afford to pay overhead expenses.

"The market has impacted us tremendously, and it was something we basically had no control over," Kline said. "We cannot any longer invest our personal resources into the business."

The closure puts 350 agents and 20 other employees out of work.

I just have to share the December 21st Realty Times post of one of RE/Max 2000’s agents, Bruce Fraser: [M and I have chuckled over his posts before]

December 2007 is looking to be a good month for the local Real Estate market. People are out there buying homes now. With the new 202 Freeway, the Industry is booming.

There are several factors that help make this a normal market: 1. Interest rates are low and banks want to lend money to qualified borrowers; 2. The unemployment rate is low; 3. AZ is a great place to live and work; 4. There is a limited amount of land for new housing, keeping pressure on the demand for re-sale homes.

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The housing market continues its freefall:

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. home prices fell in October for the 10th consecutive month, declining a record 6.7 percent compared with a year ago, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index.

 

"No matter how you look at these data, it is obvious that the current state of the single-family housing market remains grim," said Robert Shiller, who helped create the index, in a statement Wednesday.

The previous record decline was a drop of 6.3 percent, recorded in April 1991.

Home prices fell 1.4 percent in October compared with the previous month.

The S&P/Case-Shiller home price index tracks prices of existing single-family homes in 10 metropolitan areas compared with a year earlier. A broader index of 20 metropolitan areas fell 6.1 percent. Among the 20 metropolitan areas used in the broader index, 11 posted record monthly declines.

Case-Shiller is one of the better housing reports:

The S&P/Case-Shiller index and another by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight track the same home over time and more accurately reflect price trends, economists said.

Price gauges from the Commerce Department and the Realtors group can be influenced by changes in the types of homes sold. Higher sales of cheaper homes relative to more-expensive properties will bias the figures down.

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