The Incline Village real estate market is showing signs of becoming a very stable bedrock of home sales. Both Short Sale and Bank Owned listings are at year to date lows. The good ones are being abosorbed almost instantly. There just are not many A or B properties for sale in the distressed markets here in Incline. The June national numbers are promising as well. Might be a good time to jump in and grab a great Incline Village value in real estate. Read on..
Tim Lampe, your Realtor by Choice for 28 years.
National Summary:
The surprisingly large jump in the number of new home sales in June may prove to be significant. It has been a standard assumption among economists that new home sales will pick up after existing home sales, perhaps with a lengthy lag. The concern, of course, is that builders have to deal with remaining inventories and, today, the plentiful supply of foreclosure properties competing for the potential buyers of new homes. New homes may have some advantages that have not been acknowledged fully by analysts, like their ability to offer homes that can be customized to fit the buyer's needs and wishes.
Time will tell, of course, but I suspect we will learn a great deal about this real estate market from the strength of the new home market in coming months. Also to be watched: The areas where sales are strong--both for new and for existing homes--are micromarkets. They are not cities or counties or states or regions. They are more likely neighborhoods or developments or parts of neighborhoods or developments. This makes them invisible to many methods of gauging sales data. But they are increasingly important, it seems.
KEY INDICATORS [7/26/10]
Gold $1183.00/ounce [down]
Crude Oil(Brent) $78.98/brl [up]
U.S. Dollar to…
Euro .7687 [down]
Japanese Yen 87.90 [up]
6-mo Treasury Bill Yield 0.20%
10-yr Treasury Note Yield 3.05%
[6-month up 1 bp, 10-yr up 11 bps]
11th Dist Cost of Funds 1.791%[-]
30-yr Fixed-rate Mortgage 4.90%
15-yr Fixed-rate Mortgage 4.38%
1-yr ARM 3.95%
[HSH averages rates: 30-yr
down 8 bps;15-yr down 8 bps; 1-yr ARM down 8 bps]
Mortgage Bankers Association Mortgage Applications Index
week ending 7/16
Overall
753.5 (up 7.6%; down 2.9%
the week prior)
Purchase Money Loans
1638.9 (up 3.4%; down 3.1%
the week prior)
Refinancing Loans
4161.9 (up 8.6%; down 2.9%
the week prior)
Jobless Claims 7/17
464,000 – prior week 429,000 – continuing claims at 4.487 m
Existing Home Sales June
Down 5.1% month-to-month – up about 10% from year ago
Conference Board Leading Indicators Index June
Down 0.2%
New Home Sales June
Up 23.6%
Weekly Commentary
“Now that the smoke has cleared a little, it is evident that the extended and expanded federal tax credit boosted sales of new homes only slightly. Moreover, the retrenchment on the backside of the credit has been large.” [Celia Chen, Moody’s Economy.com]
The markets were surprised by a seemingly outsized gain in sales of new homes in June. According to the Census Bureau, there were 23.6% more sales of new homes in June than in May. (But this, as will soon be clear, could be revised at any time.)
There is more to the story than the headlines tell. The monthly figures for new home sales are extraordinarily volatile and subject to revision. Indeed, the Bureau revised its April and May figures from gains of 27% and 15% respectively, trimming those gains to 11% and 10%, making April sales less than half as strong as they appeared before the revision. The earlier numbers seemed appropriate, given that homebuyers were rushing to complete transactions in time to qualify for the $8,000 and $6,500 federal tax credits. It seemed likely, further, that the extreme decline in the number of sales when the tax credit programs ended were caused by the programs’ termination.
Now, however, we must revise our perception of reality to match the changed numbers. The revised numbers for April and May, which were most strongly affected by the tax credit programs’ end, suggest that the tax credit programs had less impact on new home sales than had been assumed, and quite possibly that the tax credit programs had less impact on new home sales than on existing home sales.
There are many tentative conclusions that we could reach. For one, it appears that even the tax credits program couldn’t breathe much life into the new homes market.
Another take on these figures, though, suggests that though sales are very slow overall, there may be more resilience in the new homes markets than is discernible unless we look closely.
As with existing homes, there are pockets of strong new home sales in different areas of the country. Why? The question is as important and, perhaps, mysterious as why sales jumped 23.6% in June. The answer may be that a very unusual rolling recovery has begun, in both new and existing homes, as buyers in certain categories find they can now afford what they’ve long wanted. Further, new styles of homes, aimed specifically at first-time buyers and retirees, have been well-received by the market. Transactions may be spotty, but it looks like there are buyers entering specific micro-markets. This trend should be watched carefully.