From the Washington Post yesterday:
Lereah said that he originally expected the housing market to recover by this quarter but that he now believes it won't happen until summer. A full recovery, he said, will take place in 2008. "I expect a couple of more sluggish months coming," he said.
Others questioned that assessment. "Every bottom call up until this month has been wrong," said Mike Larson, a real estate analyst at Weiss Research in Jupiter, Fla. "There's no evidence in the numbers yet that the market is bottoming."
Larson said prices will continue to drop until the supply of homes decreases.
. . .
Sales tumbled in every part of the country. They fell 10.9 percent in the Midwest, 9.1 percent in the West and 8.2 percent in the Northeast. In the South, which includes the Washington region, sales dropped 6.2 percent.
Still, John McClain, a senior fellow at George Mason University's Center for Regional Analysis, said the Washington region will probably snap back more quickly because of a healthy local economy. "I think we're in the beginnings of a recovery in this market," he said, "but I don't think we'll see it for a few months."
We'll keep watching carefully for the recovery, since this is only the beginning.
Here's a prior (PDF file) prediction of Mr. McClain's. (See pp. 28-29) :
Housing Outlook for 2006 and 2007
"Areas of region with more affordable housing will continue to have 15-20% increases in 2006 - Prince George's, Prince William, Spotsylvania".
1 comments:
as more unaffordable ARMS line up to reset this summer I guess we won't have to worry about supply decreasing.
I don't know about anyone else, but as the tide is turning in the mainstream media, I just get the vibe more people are starting to sweat and get their homes back on market for their "flips".
Using the unofficial tallies on Zip Realty, the local inventory (DC, VA, MD, Balt) didn't move a whole lot... from 46kish to 48kish from Jan - Mar... oops, we're at over 56k now... almost a 1k increase in the past week alone...
Post a Comment