The Columbia SC housing market continues to show positive signs of improvement, along with other markets throughout the U.S. This, as reported by National Association of Home Builder’s chief economist, David Crowe, in the NAHB March Market Index report…
Columbia SC Housing Market According to NAR
According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), nationwide, not just in the Columbia SC housing market, pending home sales fell slightly in February, but still remained well above levels set in the first half of 2011.
The NAR report indicates the spring home-buying season looks bright because of an elevated level of contract offers so far this year. The NAR Pending Home Sales index is a forward-looking indicator of housing activity based on contract signings, and is not just indicative of the Columbia SC housing market, but all markets across the country.
The index hit a level of 96.5 in February, down 0.5% from a score of 97 in January. Still, it remains 9.2% above the February 2011 index score of 88.4.
Have specific questions or comments about the Columbia SC housing market? We’d love to hear from you.
President Obama has now presented his 2013 fiscal year budget and while many believe Congress will not support the proposed cuts and added spending, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) is focusing on the mortgage interest deduction (MID). NAR notes that “As in previous years, the budget would reduce the value of itemized deductions to 28 percent for married couples with incomes over $250,000 and individuals with income over $200,000. Currently, depending on the tax bracket these households are in, the value of their deductions could be as high as 33 or 35 percent.”
NAR President Moe Veissi said in a statement that the association would strongly oppose this or any proposal that would limit MID and other itemized deductions. “The mortgage interest deduction is vital to the stability of the American housing market and economy. We urge the president and Congress to do no harm” to today’s fragile economic recovery, Vessi said. “The nation’s homeowners already pay 80 to 90 percent of U.S. federal income taxes. Raising taxes on them, now or in the future, could critically erode home values at all price levels.”
Of the $3.8 trillion budget, NAR notes “several hundred billion would be new spending for infrastructure, research and development, and other priorities of the administration. The budget envisions cutting about half a trillion dollars from the defense budget, and another roughly half a trillion dollars through tax law changes, including the NAR-opposed curbs to the value of MID for upper-income households. More savings would come from allowing tax cuts enacted during President George W. Bush’s administration to expire for all households except those earning less than $250,000.”
NAR has made it clear they oppose any reduction of mortgage interest deductions and while the overall budget will not likely be passed in its current form, the association has many challenges ahead as they fight to keep the deductions alive.
We feel the President’s inclusion of mortgage interest deduction is just one of the items he fully expects to get chopped by Congress, and he’ll go along with their axing this item in exchange for other cuts he wants made worse than the mortgage interest deduction. What do you think? We’d love to know your feelings about this being back in the new budget proposed by the President.
Real estate professionals and economists who paid close attention to the monthly existing-home sales data provided by the National Association of Realtors were given a sharp shock recently when it was revealed in the Chicago Tribune that the association had been consistently reporting bad figures each and every month since January 2007, when the housing crisis really took hold.
NAR admits to ‘over-estimating’ existing home sales data.
As part of the trade association’s benchmark revision reporting, new data has allowed a more accurate depiction of the housing market, with home sales data being revised downward by 14.6 percent for 2010 while for the total period of 2007 to 2010, resale home sales were revised downward by 14.3 percent.
Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the NAR, explained that the association used the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) to track existing home sales. However, he pointed out that the MLS database is limited to data from sales listed by realtors only. Sales of homes listed by owners are excluded from the database, and so the MLS only provides a narrow view of real estate markets. He also pointed out that because the majority of homeowners use realtors, sales figures for realtor listed homes became artificially inflated.
Also, the NAR often made a number of assumptions each month, based on data from the 2000 Census, which is clearly outdated.
The bad data is particularly concerning because the US economy is so closely linked to the fortunes of its real estate markets, and real estate policies followed by both Congress and the Federal Reserve have been based in part of the NAR’s existing sales data.
What do you think about this news of bad sales data being reported by the NAR? Shocked, or not? We’d love to hear your comments. Just click the link below and sound off. Your email address will never be published along with your comments for your privacy and protection.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, new home sales rose 1.3 percent in October from September and are up 8.9 percent from October 2010, and although the rate fell short of economists’ forecasts, improvement in the hardest hit sector is welcomed by new home builders in any form. The month ended with a 6.3 month supply at the current rate of sale and a median sale price of $212,300.
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported recently that existing home sales for October were up, while the number of homes on the market as well as prices are declining. With Freddie Mac reporting mortgage interest rates have dropped below four percent again, all of these indicators may improve November’s figures, despite weather conditions that often slow the market in select regions.
Additionally, the U.S. Commerce Department reported recently that single family housing starts rose 3.9 percent in October, but the improvement was masked by an 8.3 percent drop in multifamily starts that kept national housing production essentially flat in October up only 0.3 percent. Single family home permits issued rose to its fastest pace since December 2010, up 5.1 percent for the month, a forward-looking economic indicator that is used to consider what starts will look like in the future. The multifamily sector saw a 24.4 percent increase in permits issued, hinting at a continuing multifamily rollercoaster of volatility.
Housing starts for single family combined with multifamily was up 17.2 percent in the Northeast, 9.7 percent in the Midwest and 1.6 percent while starts dropped 16.5 percent in the West. Permits dropped in the Northeast 1.6 percent and 3.7 percent in the Midwest but rose 5.4 percent in the West and 21.5 percent in the South.
The 2011 National Association of Realtors® (NAR) Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers surveyed 5,708 home buyers and sellers and found that home buyers who use the web in their home search differ in other behaviors and demographics than buyers who do not use the web and the findings may surprise you.
It is no surprise that the typical buyer who used the Internet is younger, averaging 42 years of age with non-web searchers averaging 60 years of age. What is surprising however, is that buyers who used the web are actually more affluent, despite the assumption that an older buyer is more affluent – the typical buyer who used the Internet in their home search has a median household income of $83,700 compared to those who did not use the web whose median household income is $60,300.
Buyers who used the Internet to search for a home searched double the length of time than those who did not incorporate the Internet in their search. Buyers who did not use the net used fewer sources in their search, as buyers who did use the net to search for a home used various sources with higher frequency with 56 percent also using yard signs (compared to 46 percent of buyers who didn’t use the net), while 46 percent of web searchers used open houses as an additional source (compared to only 34 percent of buyers who didn’t use the web).
Buyers who search the Internet are more likely to go to open houses and call on yard signs, contrary to the popular belief that web searchers stick to the net – the research shows that typically, buyers who search via the Internet have an inherent interest in researching deeply.
Bottom Line: Internet Users Are More Valuable
The icing on the cake is that 90 percent of buyers who used the web to search for homes use a real estate agent as opposed to the 70 percent of buyers who didn’t use the net. The standard belief is that tech savvy shoppers are often anti-agent because of various startups that have launched over the years to supplant real estate brokers and agents, but it hasn’t worked, in fact, the opposite has occurred.
The bottom line is that Internet users are extremely valuable – they earn more money, are more likely to look at offline marketing, are more likely to go to an open house and above all, they are much more likely to actually hire an agent.
What about you? Obviously if you’re reading this story, you’d fall into that “Internet User” category. Do you feel these statistics from the NAR survey are true, or not? We’d love to hear your opinion. Just click the comment link below and tell us your feelings about this survey.