Real Estate Directory

Existing Home Sales Are Up?

What happened to the Bubble?

The National Association of Realtors reported Thursday that that sales of existing single-family homes and condomiums rose by 5.2 percent in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.91 million units. This despite the predicte 5 % drop compared to last year.

The prices of homes sold in February rose to $209,000 for the nationwide median.That was 10.6 percent above the median price in February 2006.   

Economists believe that both new and existing home sales will dip by around 5 percent this year as rising mortgage rates cuts into demand.

But mortgage rates seem to have perhaps stagnated because of a drop in inflation. But Lereah said all indications so far were pointing to a gradual slowdown in sales to a more sustainable pace.

By region of the country, sales rose by 19.2 percent in the Northeast and were up 11.1 percent in the Midwest and 5.1 percent in the West in February. Only the South showed weakness last month with sales there dropping by 2.5 percent from the January pace.

Lereah said sales activity at present was really a "tale of two cities" with some of the hottest markets showing declines while some medium priced markets still posting strong sales gains.

He said that sales were down by double-digit levels in such hot sales markets as Phoenix, Fort Lauderdale and San Diego. He said, by contrast, sales were up by double-digit amounts in aeas such as Indianapolis, Albuquerque and Houston.

Luxury Estates

USA Today reported that their were 28 homes selling for $10 million or more in 2004, up from 18 in that price range in 2003.

The most expensive is the $75 million home in the Hamptons. It sits on 60 acres with 14 gardens and three ponds, in addition to the 18-hole golf course.

Also on the market is a $65 million, 11,000-square-foot home on Belvedere Island, with sweeping views of San Francisco Bay. 

Many of the high-end prices are in traditionally high-end markets such as New York, San Francisco and Palm Beach, Fla.

San Francisco real estate market

The San Francisco Bay area real estate market, which has maintained its value despite a national recession and defied predictions from economists for more than a decade, may have hit its peak, a prominent economist Edward Leamer said Wednesday at a seminar. About 250 people, mostly clients of the event's sponsor, brokerage firm Hoefer & Arnett attended the talk.

"I expect to see a flattening," said Leamer, director of the Anderson Business Forecast Project at the University of California, Los Angeles.

He also said the national housing market showed signs of weakening and warned that eight of the last 10 recessions in the United States started with a plunge in home sales and prices.

Leamer, who accurately predicted the coming of the 2001 recession a year before it hit, has been forecasting a Bay Area real estate turn since at least 2002. At that time, he asked rhetorically, "What are they smoking up there" when writing about the Bay Area housing market.