real estate indicators

Single Family Housing Starts Finally Below Purchase Rate

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Check out this chart from Calculated Risk comparing new housing starts, new home sales, and homes that are completed and ready for sale.

(click for full sized chart)
You will notice that for the past 2+ years we have had an [...]

19May2008 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

Michigan Business Tax levies greater impact on real estate firms -

Back in March I talked about how the Michigan legislature was trying to destroy real estate values in the state with a new tax system. Well, they passed the tax and now it is in effect.
Take a wild guess who it is going to hurt the worst. You got it, landlords and real estate [...]

15May2008 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

There are some incredible buys out there for first-time home buyers…

“There are some incredible buys out there for first-time home buyers.”
When you start seeing quotes like the one in the headline, you know we are getting near the bottom. In the middle of a gloom and doom report coming out of Florida, and it is very rough there right now, a nugget pops out that [...]

14May2008 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

Is That Bouncing Sound I Hear The Bottom Of The Real Estate Market?

According to Wellesley University professor and housing market guru Karl Case, that may very well be the situation we are seeing. The historical trends and demographics of new home starts and sales data are showing what has in the past 40 years show the bottom of the housing market.
Now, I profess to have all [...]

9May2008 | Tom Royce | 4 comments | Continued

Federal Meddling in Housing Market Spells Disaster

In one of the best written articles on the housing market problems and how the Federal Governments intervention could make it worst has now been written by J.D. Foster. If you have a few minutes please read it. It is one of the most succinct articles on how much damage the meddling of our government can do [...]

5May2008 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

United States Has 129.4 Million Homes- 18.6 Million of Whom Are Vacant

The United States real estate market has an inventory problem. When there are over 18 million empty homes across the country we have no reason to continue to build new homes. If this were a logical marketplace we would tell builders to take a 2 year moratorium until absorption met demand.
Instead we have builders building [...]

29Apr2008 | Tom Royce | 2 comments | Continued

The 100 Percent Solar Home

The creation of a fully solar home is an ambitious concept. Fortunately the developer is thinking of putting it on the Dubia coastline and not in the middle of Seattle, Washington.

United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based real estate giant Nakheel is planning to build entirely solar-powered homes on its iconic Palm Jumeirah development. “The idea is still [...]

5Apr2008 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson Qutting Position

Alphonso Jackson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, is expected to resign his post as head of the Cabinet Department. The timing of this resignation is not a great indicator of how the White House and Congress are dealing with housing issues.
There have been reports that one of the stumbling blocks is the relationship [...]

31Mar2008 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

Where Are The Beach Front Bargains? Few And Far Between

As housing prices drop folks are coming out of the woodwork looking for bargains. If you are looking in fringe subdivisions far outside of major metropolitan areas they are all over the place. But if you are looking to get a bargain on prime beachfront property that will be very hard to do.
Lets face it, [...]

13Mar2008 | Tom Royce | 2 comments | Continued

Why The United States Real Estate Downturn Will Be Much Different Than Japan’s

There is a great deal of discussion going on in the real estate world that the real estate downturn in the United States is going to mimic the 10 year downturn that Japan went through in the 1990’s. The fear of rampant deflation or at best stagflation is often the fear raised by those who [...]

10Mar2008 | Tom Royce | 3 comments | Continued