Building Market Intelligence

While both the media and stock investors believe that housing has bottomed, they are unaware of the massive supply of homes that are already in the foreclosure process that will certainly drive home prices down even further when they are …

Get ready for the short sales. According to a Treasury spokeswoman, Treasury officials will soon announce a $2,500 subsidy ($1,000 to the servicer and $1,500 to the seller) to encourage short sales as a way to clear the excess inventory. …

Construction in some really big markets has died, but we found a number of surprises when we decided to rank the Top 20 markets compared to the national peak in 2005. Our takeaways: A Sliver of its Former Self We …

Investor buyers are back and help explain some of the resurgence in sales we have seen in many markets. Investor sales now constitute nearly 26% of total sales in the 53 markets where we track this statistic, which is higher …

The FHA is a big reason that home prices haven’t fallen even further. The FHA’s aggressive lending programs have continued throughout the housing downturn, causing its market share of the mortgage industry to grow from 2% in 2005 to 23% …

Several months ago, we told our clients we thought we were entering a “W” shaped recovery, with the “first leg up” in the W driven by four things: Tremendous affordability for those who are currently paying rent, The $8,000 federal …

It sounds like a home builder’s fantasy, but we found this real-life scenario in Torrance, California: a project that’s been selling an average of 4 homes a week with 40% of its buyers paying in cash and many others coming …

Florida’s construction market has virtually shut down. We have been valuing properties throughout the state all year and, while we are seeing some modest improvement in sales velocity, there is virtually no new construction. Year-to-date through May, the state has …

While the Census Bureau reported last week that housing starts surged month-over-month, these headline-grabbing numbers are the seasonally adjusted data, which can fluctuate wildly. They often create great headlines because of the significant changes each month. A better way to …