National Housing Meltdown - on Neptune I guess
The Denver Post reports today that we’re in the midst of a “national housing meltdown…” Seriously? And on what planet would that be??? (As a quick aside I must point out that the best part about blogging is I can do what I want with punctuation.) Honestly, I think it’s irresponsible to throw out phrases like that in the guise of journalism when there isn’t a bit of solid data to back up an assertion like that.There is absolutely, positively, NO “national housing meltdown.” Not even close. Sure, it’s fun to write words like “meltdown” and I suppose people are more likely to buy the newspaper and actually read articles with words like “meltdown,” rather than “housing market kinda slowish at this time in certain areas…” Which is FAR closer to the truth than “meltdown” but a hell of a lot more boring.
Now to give the author some credit he does supply several quotes from economists who do not predict big trouble ahead for the American economy, but that doesn’t erase the “meltdown” comment in the first sentence that is stated as fact and not opinion.
Lawrence Yun, senior economist for the National Association of Realtors, was in Broomfield 2 weeks ago to give a talk on the state of the real estate market. (To which, I might add, the media was invited, but unless they were hiding, no one from the major dailies bothered to show.) He opened his talk with the words, “…the housing market is fundamentally sound.” Again, much more boring than “meltdown” but actually backed up by – wait for it – DATA.
I’ve griped about the media before and I’m sure to do it again but how about a little less hyperbole and a few more facts folks? The way the media presents things you’d think that every other house on your block was in the middle of foreclosure.
On August 27, the National Association of Realtors released sales DATA for July which showed home sales had remained stable and that “the market is holding on despite temporary mortgage disruptions.” [emphasis mine] Maybe I was too busy watching Big Brother at the time but I missed the flurry of announcements by the media on that news. How about some headlines proclaiming “Good news on the housing front” or “Housing market woes look to be lifting” or just a simple “Housing market holding steady”?
In fact, there were home sale increases in the west and Northeast which, Dr. Yun goes on to point out, that sales and prices in the Northeast have increased “on a fairly consistent basis the last few months” and that may prove promising because it was the first region that experienced problems after the boom and now that it appears to be coming back, other regions may follow. Again, didn’t hear a whole lot about that did we?
Along the Front Range in Colorado I can assure you there is nothing even remotely resembling a “meltdown.” According to Metrolist data in July, homes sales while down nearly 3% from the previous month were UP 2.68% from this time a year ago.
Metrolist will release the housing sales statistics on Wednesday for August and I can already predict how it will go – if housing sales are down by the tiniest amount it will be trumpeted all over the place – if they’ve held their own or are up, we won’t hear much.Am I claiming that everything is just peachy? Of course not. I have clients who have been personally and profoundly affected by adjusting mortgage interest rates and they are struggling. But I’m also smart enough to know that my anecdotes do not a market make.
I could go on forever but this is a blog after all and not an issue paper. But trust me, I’ll be back.
Beth Skinner is a real estate professional who actually returns phone calls and emails! Click here to search the MLS for your dream home.
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