Today the Muskegon Chronical did a Story on our loacal Real estate market and David Alexander used me and some of our records as source.
MUSKEGON — For the first time since the Great Recession took hold in 2008, the Muskegon County residential real estate market is showing signs of potential recovery.
This single-family home in the Stonegate residential development in Muskegon County's Cedar Creek Township was sold since the beginning of the Great Recession.But longtime real estate professionals are cautious. The industry and home owners have been beaten down so badly in recent years that no one is ready to declare the worst is over.
Since the market collapse in October 2008, Muskegon County average sale prices have for the first time significantly increased. At the same time, overall sales have remained fairly stable and there is a drop in home foreclosures as seen in recorded “sheriff deeds” — a critical step in the foreclosure process.
The average sale price for a single-family home in Muskegon County in 2011 was $90,877, up 13.6 percent from $79,959 in 2010, according to analysis by David Medendorp of ALT Realtors and Property Management. Medendorp used data from the Muskegon County Register of Deeds office and the South and West Michigan Regional Information Center — a data base of the region's Realtors' associations.
The Muskegon County average home sale price was $76,309 in 2009, the low in the Great Recession. The improved average sale price statistics for 2011 is still 18.3 percent lower than the pre-recession peak of $111,299 in 2005.
David Medendorp“I think the market is at its bottom but I see it hanging out there for a while,” Medendorp said of the state of the local residential real estate market at the beginning of 2012. “We see a lot of people kicking the tires but they haven't yet gotten into the market.”
The turn around in average home sale prices also is being seen in Ottawa County, where a California-based real estate research company found the second highest price rebound in the nation's 384 metropolitan areas. Ottawa County in the first 10 months of 2011 saw home prices increase 11.89 percent, according to CoreLogic.
“The reports coming out are all positive and unit activity is running high,” said Dale Zahn, chief executive officer of the Grand Haven-based West Michigan Lakeshore Association of Realtors, which services the Holland, Grand Haven and Muskegon markets.
“I'd like to say this market has hit bottom and is moving up but the trends are way too early to get excited,” Zahn said. “Yet, we are moving in the right direction.”
Muskegon County total home sales for 2011 were 1,753 compared to 1,843 sales in 2010. The number of home sales remained pretty steady through the recession but in 2011 the number of homes that sold at less than $50,000 decreased and the number above $200,000 increased.
Bill Carlston, owner of Nexes Realty in Muskegon and a longtime real estate agent in Muskegon County, called the current market unsettled. Muskegon begins 2012 with a low supply of homes for sale in the $50,000-$150,000 range — a price level that many homeowners look at for their next “step up” home purchase, he said.
“The biggest concern is jobs and for all of us to keep our jobs,” Carlston said of employment uncertainty even as the unemployment rate in Muskegon County moved down to 8.4 percent in November from a recession high of 15.7 percent in July 2009.
Bill Carlston“The saving grace has been the interest rates,” Carlston said of current 30-year fixed mortgage rates between 3.75-4.25 percent. “If you are buying a house, this is the best time to be in the market. Prices are down and interest rates are the best in my career.”
Medendorp said he suspects there is “pent up demand” for houses in the Muskegon market as many who would like to sell and move are unable to because they cannot sell their current houses. Many people find the recession's hammer on their home prices have put their home values below what they owe on their mortgages.
Owing more on a mortgage than the house is worth is known as a loan that is “under water.”
“It's a huge, huge problem right now,” Medendorp said. “People are stuck not being able to sell their homes.”
Instead of remaining in a losing position, many people — even with solid credit histories of paying their bills — decide to walk away from their homes. Such “strategic defaults” are expected to continue to keep mortgage foreclosures high and drive down home values as banks unload such properties at discounted prices.
Foreclosure activity was down last year as seen through sheriff's deeds — a point of the foreclosure process the sheriff will sell the property to satisfy a court judgment. Muskegon County sheriff's deeds dropped to 906 in 2011 from 1,064 in 2010. Sheriff's deeds peaked in 2008 at 1,172 but were as low as 640 in 2003.
Muskegon real estate professionals see a batch of new mortgage foreclosure fillings as some homeowners walk away from their mortgages and financial institutions increase their foreclosure activity. Foreclosures dropped in part in 2011 as legal and procedural issues caused delays in the process, real estate professionals said.
“It is going to take us quiet a bit of time to (sell) the foreclosure inventory,” Medendorp said.
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