How oppressive are distressed sales to the housing market?
Try this: The top 50 sellers of homes are banks, according to Jonathan Smoke of Housing Intelligence, the research arm of the Hanley Wood publishing company. It's only after these 50 that the nation's largest builder shows up on the list.
Or this: In only two dozen markets in the country are builders outselling lenders, Smoke also reported at the National Association of Home Builders' annual conference in Orlando last week.
Or even this: Only two large banks actually support the new home market, according to the economist.
If it hadn't been for these institutions, their own inhouse mortgage affiliates, and cash buyers, Smoke said, builders may not have notched half the sales they logged last year. And last year was the worst for new home sales since – well, since records started being kept.
Ah, but hope springs eternal. And as Spring approaches, Smoke believes the prime home selling season will be the best in some time. His forecast is for “partly cloudy with a 60% chance of growth.”
Specifically, the economist is calling for improvement in 769 of the 940 metro areas he follows.
He is forecasting a 14% bump in sales. He's only looking for an 8% increase in single-family starts, but as he said here, “anything that's not negative is good.”
