House Price Trends, Back and Forward
Recently I came across two articles about house price. First, BankRate published an article "How are home values in your neighborhood?" based on the latest quarterly survey from the onal Association of Realtors. The study shows that nation-wide, the median house price increased from $161,100 in Q4 2002 to $171,600 in Q4 2003, a 6.6% growth. The article also includes region-by-region numbers in each state. (For my location -- Seattle, WA -- median house price increased from $258,300 to $276,500, a 7.0% climb.)
Secondly, the March issue of Money magazine offers some opinions of forward looking house price trends in the article "What's next for real estate?" Its forecast is overall the house price is still going to move up (though not at the same speed as 2003 due to macro economic reasons) and it is unlikely we will have a collapse any time soon. The region-by-region forecast:
Region, 2003 actual gain, 2004 estimated gain
West
Pacific: 12.9%, 9.4%
Mountain: 3.9%, 3.5%
West South Central: 5.3%, 6.1%
Midwest
West North Central: 9.5%, 7.5%
East North Central: 5.4%, 4.2%
East South Central: 3.4%, 3.9%
East
New England: 7.3%, 5.3%
Middle Atlantic: 10.6%, 5.7%
South Atlantic: 11.1%, 8.7%
The second article also mentioned the following eight states has the most volatile housing markets and thus "risky:"
Hawaii
Connecticut
New Hampshire
California
Rhode Island
Massachusetts
New Jersey
New York
Topic Sponsors:
Find Out Your Home’s Value. Free Evaluation, It’s Easy! Click here.
This BankRate article lists the different ways to buy a home without down payment: Read
This BankRate article explained some reasons why sometimes one bank offers different rates for home purchase and refinancing in the same loan program. Read
Today National Association of Realtors reported that most metro areas show strong home price gains in Q3. (details here.) While 41 out of 124 metro areas advanced more than 10% in the quarter, Seattle area also reaped a solid 5.6% gain. Median sale prices of ... Read
