Housing News
Number of U.S. Home Sale Listings Increases in January
Just a blip?
After a year and a half of slowly declining numbers of homes listed for sale in America, January’s numbers reported by ZipRealty show an increase in listings by 2.9% or 15,000 total homes.
The rise in the number of listings in the 27 major US metropolitan markets totals 567,265 homes for sale, and with 18.9 million homes vacant, which isn’t quite the hair that will break the camel’s back but doesn’t look like an upswing in the immediate future can be forecasted.
Stabilization in the housing market will come when many of the moving pieces fall into place but it might be some time before that happens. Year over year, most markets had rises in inventory numbers, but perhaps FHA’s announcement this week that they would relax anti-flipping rules, the U.S. Treasury has vowed to improve the Home Affordable Modification Program and the end of 2009 ending with December seeing an increase in number of home sale contracts that were signed, there is hope yet for recovery.
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Housing News
Average age of houses on the rise, so is it now better or worse to buy new?
With aging housing in America, are first-time buyers better off buying new or existing homes? The average age of a home is rising, as is the price of new housing, so a shift could be upon us.
The average home age is higher than ever
(REALUOSO.COM) – In a survey from the Department of Housing and Urban Development American Housing Survey (AHS), the median age of homes in the United States was 35 years old. In Texas, homes are a bit younger with the median age between 19 – 29 years. The northeast has the oldest homes, with the median age between 50 – 61 years. In 1985, the median age of a home was only 23 years.
With more houses around 40 years old, the National Association of Realtors asserts that homeowners will have to undertake remodeling and renovation projects before selling unless the home is sold as-is, in which case the buyer will be responsible to update their new residence. Even homeowners who aren’t selling will need to consider remodeling for structural and aesthetic reasons.
Prices of new homes on the rise
Newer homes cost more than they used to. The price differential between new homes and older homes has increased from 10 percent traditionally to around 37 percent in 2014. This is due to rising construction costs, scarcity of lots, and a low inventory of new homes that doesn’t meet the demand.
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Housing News
Are Realtors the real loser in the fight between Zillow Group and Move, Inc.?
The last year has been one of dramatic and rapid change in the real estate tech sector, but Realtors are vulnerable, and we’re worried.
Why Realtors are vulnerable to these rapid changes
(REALUOSO.COM) – Corporate warfare demands headlines in every industry, but in the real estate tech sector, a storm has been brewing for years, which in the last year has come to a head. Zillow Group and Move, Inc. (which is owned by News Corp. and operates ListHub, Realtor.com, TopProducer, and other brands) have been competing for a decade now, and the race has appeared to be an aggressive yet polite boxing match. Last year, the gloves came off, and now, they’ve drawn swords and appear to want blood.
Note: We’ll let you decide which company plays which role in the image above.
So how then, does any of this make Realtors the victims of this sword fight? Let’s get everyone up to speed, and then we’ll discuss.
1. Zillow poaches top talent, Move/NAR sues
It all started last year when the gloves came off – Move’s Chief Strategy Officer (who was also Realtor.com’s President), Errol Samuelson jumped ship and joined Zillow on the same day he phoned in his resignation without notice. He left under questionable circumstances, which has led to a lengthy legal battle (wherein Move and NAR have sued Zillow and Samuelson over allegations of breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and misappropriation of trade secrets), with the most recent motion being for contempt, which a judge granted to Move/NAR after the mysterious “Samuelson Memo” surfaced.
Salt was added to the wound when Move awarded Samuelson’s job to Move veteran, Curt Beardsley, who days after Samuelson left, also defected to Zillow. This too led to a lawsuit, with allegations including breach of contract, violation of corporations code, illegal dumping of stocks, and Move has sought restitution. These charges are extremely serious, but demanded slightly less attention than the ongoing lawsuit against Samuelson.
2. Two major media brands emerge
Last fall, the News Corp. acquisition of Move, Inc. was given the green light by the feds, and this month, Zillow finalized their acquisition of Trulia.
…Click here to continue reading this story…
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Patrick Flynn
February 5, 2010 at 11:09 am
The inventory will continue to increase as will the number of sales throughout the Spring. The effect of which will be the interest rates will rise on news that the housing marketing is improving! Then, after the tax credits go away and rates go up, those sellers who weren’t fortunate enough to sell during the Spring will get to share their misery with the Shadow Inventory that will start leaking into the market…Yikes, what a gloomy Gus I am!
Madison real estate
February 5, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Inventory always increases in the Spring in our market as sellers get their hopes up that that the market will be flush with buyers when the Spring market arrives. Rumor has it that there is an impending tsunami of foreclosures in 2010, however, so perhaps the increased inventory can also be accounted for to some degree by that. It stands to reason that with banks not increasing their lending, the tax credits expiring soon, and interest rates rising (due to the Feds stopping their program of buying mortgage-backed securities in early March), that should cause demand to taper off a bit. If inventories continue to increase due to dramatically increased numbers of foreclosures while demand decreases more than normal (due to a more strenuous lending atmosphere, high unemployment, and lack of affordability), we could be in for a very bumpy 2010 indeed.
Californiahomes
February 9, 2010 at 2:14 am
As the spring is in the air, seasons of home buying and selling will rise and the monthly home sale inventory will continue to increase in the market. Plus, the ongoing extended and expanded tax credit will somehow help in the rocketing up in the number of home sale this year. This one great article widens our horizon towards developing real estate business. Keep it up!