Housing News Digest, September 28

Experts: Northern Colorado commercial real estate market stagnates
The commercial real estate market likely won't improve significantly for another decade, but there are opportunities for the right projects, including multifamily housing, according to industry experts.

Optimism was in relatively short supply Tuesday at the Northern Colorado Real Estate Conference Rendezvous sponsored by the Everitt Real Estate Center at CSU as architects, builders and Realtors talked of increased competition for work, more government regulations, a national economy that faces a 50/50 chance of double-dip recession and difficulty financing projects.

Mortgage Survivors Get Bargains as Price-Drop Danger Eases
The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index during the last two months has been the lowest since early 2009. The share of people in September who said jobs are hard to find rose to the highest level since 1983, and the gauge of current business conditions fell for the fifth straight month, according to the New York-based research firm’s report yesterday.

Little to Gain

“Even if there is another recession, people who can qualify for a mortgage won’t gain anything by playing the waiting game,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Englewood, Colorado-based IHS Inc., who predicts another 5 percent national decline before prices hit bottom next year. “They may get lucky with the price, but they probably won’t be getting these low mortgage rates.”

Denver No. 4 on Case-Shiller
“On a year-over-year basis, this is telling me Denver is very stable,” said Peter Niederman, CEO of the Kentwood Co. “We are hanging in the top 5. It is a nice place to be. We did not see the high-highs and we are not seeing the low-lows. We are maintaining a nice, stable environment.”

That is preferable than being like the stock market, with its huge, recent swings, he said.

“I’m glad that we are not all over the map,” Niederman said. “I would be concerned if one month we were 13th, and the next month we were 8th, and the following month we were No 3.”

Not much optimism found in survey of Colorado commercial real estate market
Commercial real estate brokers are not optimistic about the economic future, according to results of a first-ever statewide survey released today by the Everitt Real Estate Center at CSU.

The findings highlight pessimism among commercial real estate professionals, but “wishful optimism” among architects and construction sectors.

Existing Home Inventory continues to decline year-over-year in September
In June, Tom Lawler posted on how the NAR estimates existing home inventory. The NAR does NOT aggregate data from the local boards (see Tom's post for how the NAR estimates inventory).

In a few months the NAR will revise down their estimates fpr inventory and sales of existing homes for the last few years. Also the NAR methodology for estimating sales and inventory will be changed.