Of High Tides and Homes A recession is when your neighbor loses their job. A depression is when you lose yours. –Harry Truman A good economy is when you get a raise. A great economy is when you get a raise and a promotion. –Corollary, Ross Kaplan What do those observations have to do with...Read More
A doctor who wants to determine a patient’s health checks out their vital signs: their heart rate, blood pressure, lungs, etc. What’s the equivalent for the housing market? Trends in the following three things: One. Inventory. Falling inventory — also called “supply” — augurs well for future housing prices; increasing inventory, the opposite. Right now,...Read More
Ugly Headlines Existing U.S. Home Sales Pace Down 6.3% Year-Over-Year in March –USA Today U.S. New Home Sales Unexpectedly Decline to Record Low –Reuters Existing Home Sales Drop 9.6% –Marketwatch.com Scan the latest headlines, and you’d conclude that the housing market is a wreck. What the headlines omit, however, is context: one year ago, Spring...Read More
Today’s Housing MarketThe general public — and particularly Sellers — may not have absorbed the reality of lower housing prices. But Realtors sure have. Three years ago, a $200k deal was nothing to get excited about (to say the least). Now, it qualifies as an above average transaction in the Twin Cities (completely true; many...Read More
“I Can’t Find Anything I Like” “Water, water everywhere [but] nary a drop to drink.”–Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” One of the conundrums of a housing market supposedly flooded with inventory is Buyers who lament that they can’t find anything they like. What’s going on? Is it just their imagination? Actually,...Read More
