Scott Sambucci

Housing: Spring Cleaning in Phoenix

Steven, Mr. Ed & WY Broker - Thank you for your comments. Much appreicated.

You all make excellent points about the "real" inventory that's out there. Certainly the short-term conversions to rentals and the shadow inventory of post-foreclosure units are out there. Though in some regards, by pushing the rentals a few years and the post-foreclosures getting sold in asset bundles, that's the market acting accordingly to the existing conditions. If the local market begins to show some levity in the short-term, perhaps that will provide more consistent inventory inflows over the next couple of years, rather than the floodgates that we've been seeing.

Housing: Not Cheap Enough?

Judy - Nice work on this synopsis of where we are. I attended Karl Case's presentation at the American Economic Association meeting last week - was a very revealing presentation of the data. Here's a link to the complete paper that he presented, with the presentation slides he used in the appendix of the paper:

www.aeaweb.org/annual_...

California Housing Recovery? Not So Fast

I would agree Tim's comment that there are differences between the new and existing home markets. I only specialize in the existing home markets, but there are some interesting price trends that we're seeing. For example, check out this chart of existing home prices in Sacramento by 25% divisions - top, two middle, and bottom market segments:
tinyurl.com/7l3vbn

There is definitely a rate of decline in home prices at the lower ends of the market. The question is - are these reflective of a turnaround, or just that prices have fallen so far that there is an asymptotic effect at some perceived price floors? Either way, prices are starting to show signs of leveling in Sacramento. If California was first in the glut, it could be first out and maybe this is the beginning of the beginning....

Housing Solution: Crashing Home Prices or Cheaper Mortgages?

Working in the real estate industry, I'm hearing lots of chatter among mortgage brokers and real estate agents thinking that cheaper money is going to spur demand and jumpstart the housing market. Seasonality is a problem right, but in the longer term, I side with a continued price decline as the mechanism that will begin clearing the market. I came across an interesting paper by John Taylor from Stanford that was rather critical of the use of interest rates to stimulate demand. More info on this here:

scottsambucci.blogspot...

Housing Solution: Crashing Home Prices or Cheaper Mortgages?

Working in the real estate industry, I'm hearing lots of chatter among mortgage brokers and real estate agents thinking that cheaper money is going to spur demand and jumpstart the housing market. Seasonality is a problem right, but in the longer term, I side with a continued price decline as the mechanism that will begin clearing the market. I came across an interesting paper by John Taylor from Stanford that was rather critical of the use of interest rates to stimulate demand. More info on this here:

scottsambucci.blogspot...