July Home Sales — Yikes!...

The Center for Regional Studies has just completed the July 2010 home sales and foreclosure statistics for Washoe County, and the news isn’t great.  Given that the rest of the economy is still a mess, this shouldn’t come as a surprise…but if there’s anyone out there who still thinks that housing is going to lead us out of this mess, perhaps they should take a closer look at the numbers.  In July, the sales and foreclosure numbers were almost uniformly bad — fewer sales of new and existing homes, falling prices, more foreclosures, more Notices of Default (NODs) filed…you get the picture. Looking at the cumulative numbers for the first seven months of the year relative to last year, the news was a little more encouraging: Sales of existing single family homes for the first seven months of the year were up 18% from last year, and sales of existing condos were up 75%.  There ARE sales occurring, although prices have yet to bottom out in this market and...

2q10 Housing Reports are Completed!...

The Center For Regional Studies has just completed the second quarter housing reports for Washoe County.  Builders have been slowly working their way through the stockpile of finished units, and there were less than 1,200 units in “standing inventory” at the end of June (including model homes). Each quarter we are seeing more and more tentative maps expiring — these represent units that were approved in the past few years but, due to the economic downturn, builders have not been able to bring these units to market within the allotted time frame.  Seeing as there are still over 31,000 approved-unsold units in the Truckee Meadows, this trend in tentative map expiration will likely continue for some time. To put that in perspective, there were less than 1,000 new homes sold in 2009, and 2010 is carrying on at a similar pace.  The sheer volume of approved-unsold units in the area tells me that builders are going to be extremely cautious before attempting to add to that...

Another look at the 2q2010 Housing Data for Washoe...

Housing in the 2nd quarter posted relatively strong sales (up 34% from Q1 and up 12 from last year), and distressed sales (REO or short sale) accounted for about 7% less of the total than they did last quarter – all good news.  Also, NODs filed in the second quarter numbered 30% fewer than in the first quarter and 27% fewer than a year ago – another good sign that perhaps the worst is behind us.  However, NTSs were up 14% from a year ago, and actual bank foreclosures were up dramatically – up 33% from 1st quarter and up 84% from a year ago. What is looks like to me is that banks started to move on some of the stockpiled properties that have been sitting on their books for the last several quarters.  There is clearly a backlog of distressed homes that have not been dealt with yet, and we will likely start to see those working their way through the system in the coming months.  While it’s great news that the new defaults (NODs) were down in the second quarter, it’s still distressing...