With so much positive Real Estate news why are we so cautious?

The President forgets but we won’t…

Every day flashing across your new feed you see a mix bag of housing and real estate data that can leave you confused and uncertain about the market.   Anyone in tune in the last 5 years has reason to tread lightly when jumping into the housing market today.  At times the negative news of pending foreclosures flooding the market, the government using terms like “neighborhood stabilization” and “foreclosure to rent” has us all nervous and unlike our president we won’t forget how bad it was.

But starting with the end of Q1 and continuing, we have seen a steady stream of positive housing indicators.  Over the last few weeks we have seen the following national headlines :

• Pending sales of existing homes rose up 10.8 percent to their highest level in nearly two years in March, according to the National Association of Realtors’ latest Pending Home Sales Index
• More signs the housing market is recovering came with March 2012 Existing Home Sales at 4.48 million units, was up 5.2% over a year ago. In addition, the median price rose in March to $163,800 and is up 2.5% over a year ago, while the months’ supply of inventory stayed at 6.3.
• People say home building can’t recover any time soon and yet positive signs are out there.  March 2012, Housing Starts are up 10.3% from a year ago, to a 654,000 unit annual rate. Even Building Permits are up 30.1% versus a year ago.
• Just when some thought mortgage rates couldn’t go any lower, fixed-rate mortgages reached new all-time lows this week, sending home buyer affordability even higher.
• Mortgage applications for home purchases ticked up 3.4% according to the National Association of Realtors (May 10, 2012).

In the local news from the ever pessimistic STEVE BROWN, Real Estate Editor of the Dallas Morning News, published on April 9^th 2012:

The housing market experienced a surge in the first quarter. Pre-owned home sales were up 16 percent in the first three months of 2012 from the same period last year. And median home resale prices were up a solid 5 percent.  The price bump was even higher in March, with median prices up 11 percent from a year ago, according to number  the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University and North Texas Real Estate Information Systems Inc. 

March was the ninth month in a row that pre-owned home sales in North Texas were higher than in the same month the year before. The inventory of pre-owned homes listed for sale with real estate agents in March was 23 percent below where it was a year ago. There is less than a six-month supply of houses in the Multiple Listing Service. And there is less than a three-month supply of new homes available in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, according to Residential Strategies.

Housing still remains the number 1 way to build long term wealth in America.  As rental rates continue to climb, and financing home affordability is at a record low, it maybe time to look at all your options and test the housing market again.  Give me a call today and I will help you look at you specific scanerio and make the right personal decision.