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REAL FACTS

By
Real Estate Agent with South Range Realty LLC

This is my first attempt at blogging and I am really really too old to be comfortable with this but with all the mddia fright headlines and partial facts about the real estate "market,"  I am compelled to get at some fragments of sanity and accurate stats out there.  

Bad stuff happens to good people - thats true, but the housing "bubble" was created out of greed and greed and there has been a feeding frenzy on the part of easy and bargain mortgage "pushers" since the government mandated that regulations needed to be lifted to make it easier for everyone to own a home.  Truth is, there are people who do not deserve and/or cannot afford to own a home because they either simply do not have the income to support a home or they have consistently irresponsible financial habits.   Many realtors found an easy market by promoting get-rich-quick investing to anyone who was breathing, nevermind some of their investors did not have two nickels to rub together.   There is blame to go around.  Consumers, mortgage brokers,  as well as realtors can all share the blame for the cause and the media is now fueling the flames of panic with misleading and sensationalized headlines.  This space does not provide enough space and I am not sure I am young enough to expound all every cause and history of this real estate mess so please just allow me to share some statistics and history brief and you do the math.

 *In the 1930's there were a number of restricted tariffs and policies in place that do not exist today.

  1. The banks of the 1930's practiced Isolationism- operating in a vacuum, per se, where our banks today operate in a Global Economy (with some nudging!)
  2. More than 1000 banks closed in 1930- three years before the FDIC was created.

•·                         Only 14 US banks have been taken over in 2008-no lost deposits either.

  1. There are 76 million households in the US that own their home.

•·                         24 million of these homes are free and clear.

  1. There are 52 million homes with mortgages.

•·                         97.2% of these are not in foreclosure.

•·                         93.8% of these homes are current on their payments.

Now, on a more sobering note: 

  1. Over 20% of homeowners with a mortgage owe more than their home is worth.
  2. 40% of all foreclosures are non-owner occupied. This means rental property, second homes, vacation homes and speculation.  Of this 40%, 10-15% is Speculation only.
  3. In 1999, the US passed a series of laws that greatly expanded homeownership.

Here are some other numbers you should know: 

  1. In the 1970's the average number of homes re-sold per year was 3 Million with the highest number during that time being 3.9 Million transactions.
  2. In the 1980's the average number of homes re-sold per year was 3.3 Million with the highest number during that time being 4 Million transactions.
  3. In the 1990's the average number of homes re-sold per year was 3.9 Million with the highest number during that time being 4.9 Million transactions. *This was during the dot.com boom
  4. In the 2000's the average number of homes re-sold was 5.6 Million with the highest number during that time being 7.1 Million transactions (2005). 40% of all these sales were non-owner occupied!*

*The facts and figures in this article are from the same sources used by CNN and the national networks.  An interesting point is that the news media concentrates on gloom and doom; it will take one fact and exploit it while ignoring the corresponding fact next to it.  Sources:  Buffini and Company; Wall Street Journal; Moody's Economy.com; RealtyTrac; National Association of REALTORS; Forbes.

 

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