Stan Humphries
September U.S. Home Sales UP 9.4%! An East Bay Real Estate False Indicator?
October 31, 2009 by Jim Walberg · 1 Comment
Jim Walberg states that all real estate is local, remember? The Bay Area home sales for September were up 8.4%. It doesn’t matter what the National averages are, it only matters what the stats are in our local market. And within our local markets are niche markets. Do you really care about what the statistics are in Kansas City? No. What you care about is what is happening with home sales in the East Bay real estate markets. But, here is the info from September’s home sales anyway. Last month was the largest monthly increase in home sales in the U.S. in the last 26 years! That is great news for our economy. I believe that the reason why September was so robust in home sales was because of the panic that the Home Buyers Tax Credit was ending on November 30th. ( We now know that Senator Harry Reid is authoring a bill to extend it to April 30, 2010.) The September jump in homes sales revised the projected home sales for 2009 to 5.57 million! “There’s a mini-boom going on in the housing market,” said Thomas Popik, who conducts a monthly survey of real estate agents for Campbell Communications, a research firm. Read more
Stan Humphries
High-End East Bay Real Estate May Be Next Focus Of Foreclosures?!?!
October 13, 2009 by Jim Walberg · 4 Comments
Two years ago, who would have ever thought that the top 30% of our East Bay real estate market could be facing the next wave of foreclosures? You all know I am one of the most positive person during the worst of any economic condition. I do not participate in the “slipper slide of fear”. However…I also want to make sure that I am giving realistic information to my readers regarding the East Bay real estate markets. There may be trouble in “River City” regarding the higher end real estate in our region.
Zillow may not be my favorite resource for home values, but their chief economist is pretty darn good. Stan Humphries, from Zillow stated that only 16% of foreclosures in 2006 were in the top 30% of the market. As of July 2009 30% of foreclosures are hitting the top third of the market in the Bay Area. This is TWICE the number of foreclosures in this market slice as was happening three years ago! These are now showing up in the high-end real estate markets in 2009 as price discounting continues to drive this market slice further underwater. Read more
