Oh the Real Estate Market has been frightful…

New Hampshire November 2008 Market Trends report.

This months market report by Demographer Peter Francese was just released by the New Hampshire Association of REALTORS and as always Peter Francese calls it the way he sees it. “Say goodbye to a frightful 2008 and hello to a better 2009″… I sure hope he is right because for many 2008 was frightful and it would be nice if 2009 is delightful although I’d settle for better.

The Market Trend report is reprinted with permission from the New Hampshire Association of REALTORS and is ©Copyrighted  by the New Hampshire Association of REALTORS®, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Say goodbye to a frightful 2008 and hello to a better 2009
-by Peter Francese
The mother of all ice storms took out the electricity for well over half of all New Hampshire homes on December 12 and cost a great many homeowners and businesses dearly. The loss of power at home and at work seemed to many as the final insult of what has been a year of losses in jobs, the stock market and housing.

Of all the owner occupied homes in our state, less than 1 percent are in foreclosure.

The uncertainty about the economic outlook combined with the steady stream of bad news at the national level has made it hard to be happy during this holiday season, or optimistic about the future. Yes, from an economic point of view our state has fared much better than most, but it sure doesn’t feel like it.

Before we put 2008 behind us, which is where it belongs, let’s look at what happened in out state so we can think about how best to move on to what we believe will be  a better year in 2009. Projecting forward a month, it looks like New Hampshire Realtors will have sold about 10,000 residences and 2,700 condominiums during 2008. It’s been over 10 years since that few units were sold here. Residential sales for 2008 are projected to be down almost 20 percent from 2007, but condo sales may be 35 percent below their 2007 numbers.
That uniquely large multi-year deterioration in home sales has resulted in a $3 billion loss of annual sales volume since 2005, prompting the question: What is likely to happen next year to turn around this slide in home sales? The short answer is lower interest rates and fewer foreclosures. Long time Seacoast Realtor Betty LaBranche would like to see interest rates go below 4 percent, at least for a few months. More about rates below.
Regarding foreclosures, The New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority’s latest report estimates that by the end of this year nearly 3,600 New Hampshire homes will be foreclosed on, up 72 percent from about 2,100 in 2007. Shocking, huh? Well, that 2008 number is only 1.3 percent (about 1 in every 75) of the approximately 270,000 owned dwelling in New Hampshire with a mortgage. But 30 percent of New Hampshire owned homes (a little over 100,000 homes) have no  mortgage at all. So of all the owner occupied homes in our state, less than 1 percent are in foreclosure.
The problem for New Hampshire Realtors is that 3,600 is 16 percent (or 1 out of every 6) of the approximately 22,000 new listings on NNEREN so far this year. (That pretty much confirms our October survey results showing 18 percent of sales due to a foreclosure. )
Perspective is crucial if we are going to deal constructively with this issue.
Perhaps the best news is the lowering of the Fed funds rate to near zero, which means that we are likely to see loan rates in the 4 to 5 percent range by early spring, or even below 4 percent if Betty LaBranche gets her wish. But that presumes mortgage lenders want to actually provide the funds to would-be home buyers. The intensely risk-averse behavior on the part of lenders (which is somewhat understandable) will have to be replaced with more confidence that the borrower is good for the money.

This is, without doubt, the nastiest recession any of us have ever witnessed. The most precious commodity at such a time is confidence that things will be better in the future. The one thing New Hampshire Realtors can have confidence in is that our state is in the best economic position of any New England state and so is likely to recover sooner. Our employment growth rate (Chart I) is the highest and our unemployment rate (Chart II) is the lowest in the region, plus our index of economic activity (Chart III) is fourth highest in the nation.

However, despite all that, the table below shows pretty clearly that economic decline combined with the  financial meltdown crippled November sales particularly badly in Grafton and Sullivan counties. But in the face of the gloomy economic outlook, prices held up the best in Hillsborough and Strafford counties.
Best holiday wishes to all my readers and here’s hoping for a more uplifting 2009.

November 2008 NH residential (non-condominium) sales

County	Units	% change 2007-08	Median	% change	YTD units	% change 2007-08
	sold		price	2007-08	sold
Belknap	35	-29%	$169,900	-31%	545	-20%
Carroll	41	-25%	$185,000	-25%	598	-14%
Cheshire	29	-38%	$173,700	-12%	589	-10%
Coos	25	-11%	$84,800	-30%	283	-12%
Grafton	34	-46%	$167,500	-24%	617	-25%
Hillsborough	184	-20%	$232,500	-10%	2,571	-13%
Merrimack	77	-21%	$207,300	-20%	988	-23%
Rockingham	164	-17%	$255,850	-15%	2,146	-12%
Strafford	55	-15%	$212,700	-10%	821	-19%
Sullivan	19	-44%	$180,000	-42%	328	-26%
Statewide	663	-23%	$215,000	-17%	9,486	-16%

Source:  Northern New England Real Estate Network (NNEREN).  Statistics are based on information from NNEREN for the respective periods shown for the respective regions in the State of New Hampshire or all towns in the State of New Hampshire. All analysis and commentary related to the statistics is that of the New Hampshire Association of REALTORS® and not that of NNEREN.

The Real Estate Market Trends newsletter is provided for the benefit of the members of the New Hampshire Association of REALTORS®, Inc.  ©Copyright 2007 New Hampshire Association of REALTORS®, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Peter Francese is the Demographic Advisor to the New Hampshire Association of REALTORS®.

New Hampshire Home sales… it’s more than statistics

New Hampshire Home sales it’s more than statistics…much more

You can read all the statistics in the press and hear the dire reports on the news. In fact today’s New Hampshire Business Review, business news and analysis, had a headline crying out “NH Home Sales Drop 23 % in August” which talks about the drop in the real estate market in comparison to 2007. Those of us that lived through the infamous real estate year 2007 know that it was a pretty bleak year so you can imagine how 2008 has been for many. REALTOR membership numbers have dropped as well with many agents leaving the business. Those of us that are hanging in are finding it extremely hard but at the same time realize what a great opportunity we have.

I wish I had a crystal ball

The hard thing of course is to predict what will happen in the next year and how is the current financial crisis going to effect the real estate market. For buyers this is a prime picking season, as long as they are able to secure mortgage funds of course. Sellers are getting very creative and realistic if they have to sell. Last night I showed a new listing, it had been on the market one day and already had four above asking price offers in. Read more

A few days in DC

We returned home late last night after a horrible 12 hour drive from DC. Traffic and weather conditions were a total nightmare. Jay even managed to get us lost a few time despite the GPS’s best efforts to give him directions…needless to say it was not a “fun” ride.

The conference was very good albeit it very busy. Tuesday night we attended the New Hampshire Welcome reception held at the Omni Shoreham. It was fun to mingle with fellow New Hampshire-ites and chat up the conference.

One thing that I noticed through-out the conference was technology, internet and blogs. I think the National Association of REALTORS sees the writing on the wall and is attempting to “wake-up” the masses but I think that the masses are not yet ready to wake up. Jay and I Twittered our conference experience and I know we were the only NH REALTORS to do so. One cool thing to happen was we got interviewed by the Real Estate Zebra Daniel Rothamel, it is a long interview but if you want to see it follow the link to the Agent Genius site where he posted it.

We also spent some time with fellow real estate bloggers from all over the country, that’s the beauty of Blogging, even though many of us had never met in person we all felt like we knew each other. We enjoyed a great dinner that was organized by Matt Rathbun with the RE.net/ Twitter gang and on Thursday enjoyed a presentation by fellow Bloggers Chris Elizabeth Griffith, Tony Arko and Kieth Garner known as @ktgeek on twitter.

We both attended many presentations about information affecting real estate, the market and future projections. I’ll be posting more about the conference later but in the meantime enjoy my slide show of The New Hampshire Welcome reception and some of the RE.net world folks in DC.