After declining for six consecutive months, sales of existing U.S. homes unexpectedly increased 2.9 percent in February but were still down 23.8 percent from a year ago, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors.
For more information, read the full article on: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/24/AR2008032400986.html?hpid=topnews
This article in CNN talks about the S&P Case/Shiller Home Price index which showed the largest drop in its 20 year history. The 1990-1991 year was the previous worst at 2.8%, last year the drop was 9.1%. The washington D.C. area had a drop of around 10%.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/26/real_estate/Case_Shiller_year_end/index.htm?postversion=2008022610
However, the same index is also used to predict how the market will do, and while the prediction for the entire country is grim, they do predict that by 2009, the washington dc area will show a slight improvement.
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djhighlights/200802252317DOWJONESDJONLINE000706.htm
The following article has some tips on how to sell a home in 2008.
http://www.realestatejournal.com/buysell/tactics/20080101-hoak.html?mod=RSS_Real_Estate_Journal&rejrss=frontpage
Some points from the article:
- Ask for advice early, sometime months before listing a home.
- Do a home inspection early.
- Check out the exterior details.
- Consider doing some work in the bathrooms.
- Don't overdo it in the kitchen.
Forbes had a very good article where they looked at housing markets around the country to see how they were doing. Some of the better performing markets were Seattle (14.6%), El Paso (14.3%), Portland (12.3%). Posting good gains of 5% were Houston, Los Angeles, Austin, Jacksonville, and Charlotte. The Gulf Coast also posted gains - Gulfport-Biloxi (15.5%), Baton Rouge and New Orleans (7.6%). In New York City prices increased 3.6%, but the city's Finance Department says that the growth was 19% across the 5 boroughs, with the Bronx and Brooklyn growing 27.6%.
Nationally the prices dropped 1.2%, with the Northeast dropping 4.8%. Also cities like Miami struggled the past year because of speculative investing.
What's interesting is that the areas which showed growth had high job growth and positive net migration. Most of the Northeast had only 0.8% job growth, and 4.6% more people left the area than came.
This makes me wonder if the current downturn in the Washington D.C. area will continue. We have strong job growth, and more people are entering the area than leaving. If that is the formula for a strong housing market, then why is the housing market struggling? One clue to that is that the areas showing strong growth right now had below average growth during 2004 and 2005. In Washington D.C. our houses increased at an above average pace, and we might now be experience a period of price correction. One could say that, because our indicators are strong, we will bounce back after a brief period of price correction. As a home owner, lets hope that is the case.
The Washington Post had an article over the weekend on the cost of heating a home and the different options homeowners have. They looked at wood stoves/fireplaces, pellet stoves, and gas furnaces/stoves. It was a decent article that looked at a number of options like the damage to the environment and how effective each is. They suggested that a gas fireplace is the most effective.
In my own experience, I would disagree. I've lived in home with a gas fireplace twice, and each time our gas bills were enormous. So much so that we stopped using the gas fireplace. We just moved into a house with a gas fireplace, and initially we would turn it on for an hour or two in the evenings. Our gas bill doubled. I have another client, who had a similar experience, and they don't use their gas furnace anymore.
One note about pellet stoves. They do seem very cost effective, and I know of a couple of people who swear by them. Having toured a lot of houses with pellet stoves, one thing I noticed is that these houses have a dusty smell or a dusty feel to them. As a result, it was a negative feature for some of my clients. It could have just been specific to the houses we saw, but this smell occurred in a handful of properties.
I would suggest hiring an energy consultant to do an evaluation of your home. Recently, I did just that, and I thought the consultant would just suggest that I replace my windows and add more insulation to my attic. But they were able to find a lot of little areas where I was losing heat and made a lot of good suggestions. For example, they found an air leak under my kitchen cabinet that was letting in cold air, another spot in the floor of my living room, and a corner of my sons room that was the coldest in the house. My sons room was alarming, because he was sleeping directly over the corner, and the temperature of that spot was 53 degrees.
Read this article in the post from a couple of years ago on hiring an energy consultant.
