I know many of you are going to love these new charts produced by our Friends at Ticor Title. These new charts expand on the always popular Washoe County Notices of Default Filings chart by additionally presenting statistics for Notices of Sale as well as Trustees Deed recordings.
The two formats below present the same data in different ways. One is a line chart; the other is a bar graph.
Let me know what format you prefer. Ticor Title is looking for feedback. Thanks.
Guy JohnsonA successful prior business owner, Guy brings to the table twenty-plus years of exceeding client expectations. “Listening closely to my clients is the most important step to meeting their needs,” he says. A former Chicagoan, Guy earned his MBA from the University of Illinois.
Mike McGonagleAn architect, business owner, and compulsive public records hacker, Mike reads the tea leaves of the local real estate market from a unique perspective. Yet another Chicagoan, Mike earned his MArch from Harvard University.
12 comments
Interesting article on the good chance that mortgage interest rates will rise early next Spring. Looks like $300k+ houses could drop another 25%. Guess I will keep my powder dry until next year. Actually looking forward to a rise in interest rates.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703816204574487240805281318.html?mod=rss_Today’s_Most_Popular
“Foreclosures and short sales (in which a home is offered for less than the mortgage balance) dominate the markets in some metro areas. Satish M. Mansukhani, a market strategist in New York, estimates that such “distressed” homes account for 79% of home listings in the Detroit area and 75% in Las Vegas, but just 16% in Houston and 7% in Boston.
One big question is how much more the federal government will do to prop up housing. Congress is debating whether to extend the tax credit for home buyers beyond Nov. 30. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is phasing out its massive purchases of mortgage-backed securities and plans to conclude the program by the end of March. Those purchases have helped keep interest rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages around 5%. Mr. Zandi says mortgage rates are likely to rise as much as one percentage point after the Fed ends that support. Analysts at Barclays Capital in New York forecast mortgage rates will be slightly over 6% by the end of March.
High-Priced Home Glut
While supplies of moderately priced homes have shrunk, there is still a glut of high-priced houses in many areas, suggesting that prices on those properties may fall sharply as more owners default. In Sacramento, there are enough homes on the market at $600,000 and above to last more than 15 months at the recent rate of sales, compared with just 1.5 months for homes priced at $300,000 and below, according to Lyon Real Estate.
Home sellers will also face tougher competition from landlords, who generally have been cutting rents in the past year. The national apartment-vacancy rate in the third quarter was 7.8%, the highest in 23 years, according to Reis Inc., a New York research firm. It predicts “a few more quarters of distress, lower rents and higher vacancies.”
Apartment rents may face further downward pressure as investors buy foreclosed single-family homes and turn them into rental units, says Ryan Severino, an economist at Reis, who notes that there is little data on the number of houses being converted into rental properties.
Interesting article.
Back on topic, I prefer the bar graph format. For me, it’s easier to identify longer term trends.
The line chart appears clearer, not as busy as the bar chart. Either one does the same job, but IMO the line chart is easier on “old” eyes.
I thought this article was rather apropo.
Apartment Rents Decline in U.S. West as Unemployment Increases
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By Daniel Taub
Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) — Apartment rents declined throughout the U.S. West and South in the third quarter as rising unemployment made it harder for landlords to raise their rates.
The average asking rent fell to $965 from $1,002 a year earlier, said Novato, California-based RealFacts, which surveyed owners of more than 12,600 complexes. The occupancy rate dipped below 92 percent from almost 93 percent a year earlier.
U.S. employers cut 263,000 jobs last month, more than forecast, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent, the highest level since 1983, according to the Labor Department. Job losses combined with cutbacks in consumer spending have put pressure on apartment owners.
“Renters are in a great position to secure favorable terms,” RealFacts said in a statement. “The conditions in the rental market reflect people’s attitude throughout the country. People are tightening their belts by reducing their spending.”
Of 33 metropolitan areas tracked, rents declined the most in the San Jose, California, area, RealFacts said. The monthly price of an apartment there dropped 10 percent from a year earlier to $1,536 a month.
In California’s Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura region, rents fell 7.4 percent to $1,429, and in the Seattle area they dropped 7.3 percent to $1,036. Seven markets showed rent increases from a year earlier, RealFacts said.
Apartment REITs
The Bloomberg Real Estate Investment Trust Apartment Index fell 10 percent in the 12 months through yesterday, compared with a 4.8 percent decline in the Bloomberg REIT Index and an 11 percent rise for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.
The apartment index of 13 companies includes Chicago-based Equity Residential, the largest U.S. REIT that owns apartments, and Alexandria, Virginia-based AvalonBay Communities Inc.
The RealFacts survey covers more than 3.2 million units of rental housing in states including California, Florida, Arizona, Texas, Utah, Oklahoma, Colorado and Nevada. The closely held research company surveys apartment owners on a quarterly basis.
To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Taub in Los Angeles at dtaub@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: October 21, 2009 03:01 EDT
Definitely the line chart.
Line chart. Much better.
Line charts are used to show trends over time. i.e. Foreclosures are trending up
Bar charts are used to compare items. i.e. July has 2x as april
If you wanted to use the bar chart it should have only one type of item on it. So in this case it would be increased to three separate charts.
For the information here and how it is presented a line chart should be used.
RE: “Interesting article on the good chance that mortgage interest rates will rise early next Spring. Looks like $300k+ houses could drop another 25%.”
It’s amazing how few people understand that when rates go up, prices get pushed down. There’s a whole “buy now, while rates are LOW crowd” that doesn’t grasp that relationship.
RE: “The average asking rent fell to $965 from $1,002 a year earlier”
And that’s another relationship that many people fail to recognize, especially the “it’s cheaper to own than rent” crowd.
When it’s cheaper to buy than rent, if people can’t step up and buy, then rents will fall to establish a new stasis between renting and owning.
Great stats by Mark Hanson and his take on the “housing recovery.”
http://mhanson.com/blog
While most of his data and analysis focuses on California, I think much of what he has to say has direct applicability in Northern Nevada.
He rightly and consistently makes the point that negative equity is the largest threat to a housing recovery. This is because the organic buyer is taken out of the equation. With zero or negative equity, there are no move up buyers. Is there anywhere in the country with more loanowners with negative equity than Nevada?
As long as REOs and short sales dominate the RE picture, buyers can afford to be patient.
This very point has been made here on RRB for at least the past year. At least 70% of all house sales in Reno produce no move-up buyer. The number is probably at least 75% of all sales because no doubt at least 5% of sellers have to either bring some money to the closing, or, while managing to escape short selling, are getting out by the skin of their teeth with no cash at all.
I had my garage doors serviced yesterday. I was talking to the technician, who told me he just sold his house he bought in 2003. He was very happy he had managed to escape being a short seller. He cleared $925 after all his seller’s costs.
This was one of the “equity sales” Guy likes to talk about.
Found a great link on Barry Ritholz’s blog regarding current state of the home mortgage market:
http://www.lpsvcs.com/NewsRoom/IndustryData/Documents/10-2009%20Mortgage%20Monitor/LPS%20Mortgage%20Monitor%20Sep09.pdf
It’s a good update through Sep 09 of the state of the loan environment. Relevant takeaways:
1) Total non-current loans (default or foreclosure) in Nevada stand at 21% (and are 12.5% nationally). Wow, 1 in 5 loans in some stage of default. No matter how many times I read that stat, it shocks me.
2) There’s been widespread national deterioration in loans in the last 6 months.
3) The next big wave of defaults are prime loans (prime is the new subprime/alt-a).
With that kind of backdrop I would have to give advantage to the bears. Still looks good to wait until next year, earliest.