Looking for the Bottom
Ever since the real estate bubble burst and market indicators across the board started plummeting, everyone has wanted to know when the market was going to reach bottom. Well, maybe we’re there, nationally speaking. Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, thinks so; he told AP via Fox News that “the freefall…
Ever since the real estate bubble burst and market indicators across the board started plummeting, everyone has wanted to know when the market was going to reach bottom. Well, maybe we’re there, nationally speaking. Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, thinks so; he told AP via Fox News that “the freefall is over.” AP cited several nationwide statistics from the past two weeks: “home resales in June are up 9 percent from January, on a seasonally adjusted basis; sales of new homes have climbed 17 percent during the same period; and construction, while still anemic, has risen almost 20 percent since the beginning of the year.” In the Northeast, “home resales in June hit a seasonally adjusted pace of 820,000, up 28 percent from the beginning of the year. Sales of new homes were also up slightly and construction in the region more than doubled.” It is the amateur statistician, however, that reads too deeply in short-term statistics. The improvements in the market, so far, can only provide hope that the worst is behind us, but economists warn that even if this is the bottom of the barrel, we may stay down there for a while longer.
Welcome to the Bottom [Fox News]
Photo by AvarieRiot
m4l, Manhattan = Hong Kong Island…Staten Island = New Territories….very similar situation.
> a glut of pretty damn affordable condos
HA! They aren’t affordable. Yet. Keep sitting on the sidelines, the bottom still awaits us all somewhere down the road.
DIBS,
I agree with Brenda. Prime hoods in Man, BK, Qns, BX expensive / out of reach is understandable. but when one struggles to come up with an answer of where can one buy a regular house in a good safe neighborhood without making big bucks, we’ve got issues.
Personally know several teachers who own homes in Park Slope – and don’t rent anything out. Work for NYC public schools.
New grads – different story, but now there is a glut of pretty damn affordable condos one can buy or apartments one can rent…
Don’t cops, firefighters and teachers OWN Staten Island? And, last time I checked, it was part of NYC.
NYC is not made up of “ordinary people,” Brenda. I hear what you are saying but the market is the market. It does not clear at what some may deem a “socially acceptable” level. Brooklyn is an extension of Manhattan, and probably the most desirable of all the alternatives to Manhattan. Bronx & Queens will always sell at a discount to Brooklyn. There are homes affordable by “ordinary people” within subway reach of Manhattan, but probably not brownstone Brooklyn.
they be making 100K, but it’s still not enough to buy even a crappy rowhouse in the outborough ghettoes.
*rob*
Again with this meme?
Many cops, firemen, and teachers make in excess of $100,000 and have retirement benefits that far excede anything available in the private sector. Real estate prices are one thing but cops, firemen, and teachers are more than fairly compensated.
From what I see on the listings on Brownstoner, house prices, at least in Brooklyn, remain preposterous and far out of reach of ordinary people–even houses in highly problematic neighborhoods. A drop of even 25% or so in something whose value was inflated by, what, 50%?, is progress, but the bubble is still only partially deflated. What some would call the “bottom” I would call “sanity.” When cops, firemen, and teachers can afford to buy a home in NYC without incurring terrifying mountains of debt (or renting out an apartment at a princely sum), that will be a good sign that we’re back to a realistic valuation. Perhaps it will also put a permanent end to the gold-rush mentality, and people will go back to buying houses as homes instead of lottery tickets.