Housing market addicted to heroin?

Posted on August 11, 2015 by grim

From HousingWire:

Can this sickly housing recovery survive without artificially low interest rates?

Other metrics in housing may be showing worrying signs of a slowdown, but one thing is evident and that’s housing demand is continuing to strengthen.

That’s a mixed bag.

Granted, people may not have the incomes to keep pace with the outsized (though slowing) pace of home price growth. And credit restrictions are either too tight or too loose, depending on which assumptions you start with.

But demand is strong, and that’s a critical component of the whole supply, demand and price thing that often gets put on the backburner.

Let’s break it down. Total home sales increased to nearly 6 million annualized in June. This was the fastest pace of sales since before the financial crisis and is a clear sign that the housing market is gradually normalizing.

The dark cloud to that silver lining is that the decline in pending sales suggests that existing sales, which make up around 90% of the market, may drop back in the coming months.
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One big variable is the issue of a pending Federal Reserve interest rate hike. Affordability is still there even with a rate hike, but there’s the problem that the recovery in mortgage lending has stalled.

The latest housing affordability reading for May showed the index dropping back to the low end of the post-crisis range, due primarily to the steady rise in home prices. Further declines in affordability seem likely in June and July, as home prices rose further and mortgage rates moved higher.

In the area of price, the CoreLogic index appears to be falling back into line with other measures, which point to annual price growth of roughly 5%.

That’s still not low enough to accommodate the lousy level of job and wage growth that the economy has eked out under the current administration and the hobbling effects of Dodd-Frank, but it does cool concerns that prices were ridiculously out of whack with income. (Now they’re just badly out of whack.)

If you can believe the last two quarters’ GDP — and I can give you a dozen reasons to have doubts (cough, cooking the books) there was modest growth so far in 2015, but tepid is too kind a word. Especially when you look at the quality and types of jobs employers were able to add — part-time, low-wage jobs, with record-low workforce participation.
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The question becomes can this sickly economy and housing recovery survive without the life-support of artificially low interest rates?

That’s the trillion-dollar question, which, considering the level of debt and deficit, is an even more expensive proposition.

Posted in Housing Recovery, Mortgages, National Real Estate | 69 Comments

Good time to stay put?

Posted on August 10, 2015 by grim

From HousingWire:

Consumers don’t think it’s the right time to buy

The percentage of consumers who believe it is a good time to buy dropped to 61%, an all-time survey low­, right as summer is about to come to a close.

According to the July Housing Survey from Fannie Mae, consumer attitudes toward the home-buying environment stumbled last month despite positive home-price change expectations.

And the share of consumers who believe now is a good time to sell a home didn’t fare too much better, dropping 7 percentage points to 45%.

“Deteriorating consumer assessments of income growth over the past year as well as increased caution around the direction of the economy and personal financial expectations may be contributing to the pullback in sentiment,” said Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae.

“Still, it is premature to read too much into this month’s results as the survey was taken around the time of increased global turmoil, including Greece’s potential default and China’s stock market plunge, which has receded somewhat. Most of our key indicators are as strong or stronger than they were at this time last year, which is indicative of an improving housing market this year,” he explained.

Posted in Economics, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 58 Comments

Big ticket back in BC?

Posted on August 8, 2015 by grim

From the Record:

Two houses in Alpine sell for more than $10 million

Two large Alpine homes have sold for more than $10 million this summer — the priciest deals in Bergen County in more than a year, though the properties sold at much lower prices than the owners once sought.

A 22-room brick manor at 44 Rio Vista Drive was sold by Yoram and Yacobina Koby for $13.9 million. The buyer bought it through a trust to remain private, according to the listing agent.

And a 21-room stone chateau at 5 Buckingham Drive was sold for $11 million by Marc Saperstein, a personal injury lawyer who practices in Teaneck, and his wife, Shelly. The buyer, according to public records, is Frank D. Zhang.

Both transactions were cash deals.

Like other homeowners affected by the housing crash, the owners of these luxury properties accepted lower prices than they once expected. Both homes had been on the market, off and on, for years, at significantly higher prices. The Rio Vista Drive property was first listed in 2006 for $24.9 million — $11 million more than its recent sale price.

The Buckingham Drive home was first listed in 2009, for $16.5 million.

Even with the lowered sale prices, the two sales were still the only deals above $10 million in Bergen County since 2013.

Last year, the highest-priced sale in the county was for $7 million, also in Alpine, according to the New Jersey Multiple Listing Service. In 2013, there was a $10.5 million sale in Englewood and a $13.4 million sale in Alpine.

Posted in Housing Recovery, New Jersey Real Estate | 40 Comments

Jobs Day

Posted on August 7, 2015 by grim

From MarketWatch:

Here’s what to watch in the July jobs report

Another round of solid hiring gains in July won’t guarantee that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates next month — but a good number could set the oven to preheat.

Even if job creation falls short in July and wages don’t budge, however, the Fed is unlikely to take a chill pill unless the economy takes a dramatic turn for the worse. So far there’s no sign of that.
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The U.S. is expected to show 220,000 new nonfarm jobs in July when the government on Friday issues the employment report, according to economists polled by MarketWatch. That would fall below June’s preliminary 223,000 reading, but be slightly above the 208,000 average in the first six months of the year.
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The midyear jobs report is one of the hardest to adjust for season hiring patterns because of large shifts in employment in the auto industry and education, among other things. Reported job creation in July is the second weakest of any month since the recovery began more than six years ago. And employment growth during the month has undershot the annual average since 2010.
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The unemployment rate seems very low at just 5.3% and economists expect it to remain there. But the official rate leaves out nearly 17 million people who’ve either gotten too discouraged to look for work or who can only find part-time jobs.

In June, for example, the broader U6 jobless rate that includes “involuntary” part-timers and discouraged workers stood at 10.5%. While it’s been falling steadily, the rate is sharply higher compared to the 8.4% average that prevailed shortly before the Great Recession.

The Fed said it wants to see “some further improvement” in the labor market before raising a key short-term interest rate, now near zero, for the first time since 2006. A U6 rate tumbling toward 10% or below would be one such sign.

Posted in Economics, Housing Recovery | 49 Comments

Tax breaks working to bring new jobs?

Posted on August 6, 2015 by grim

From the Star Ledger:

JP Morgan moving 2,150 jobs to Jersey City, report says

JP Morgan Chase has formally decided to relocate 2,150 jobs from Manhattan to an office building here, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal Wednesday.

Last month, state officials agreed to tax breaks of $188 million over 10 years to persuade the financial firm to expand its existing operations in Jersey City, which will now bring the total number of Morgan employees to about 7,000. The firm had been considering locations in Delaware and Ohio, NJ Advance Media reported in July.

The tax breaks were a significant factor in the bank’s decision to bring the jobs to New Jersey instead of the other states, where JP Morgan also has facilities.
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The new employees would have a median salary of $164,000, according to the EDA analysis. The move is expected to generate more than $665 million for the state over 20 years, the report also said.

Posted in Economics, Employment, New Jersey Real Estate, NYC | 66 Comments

US Real Estate – 40 months of price increases

Posted on August 5, 2015 by grim

From HousingWire:

CoreLogic: Home prices rose an amazing 6.5% annually in June

Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased by 6.5% in June 2015 compared with June 2014, according to the June 2015 CoreLogic Home Price Index.

This change represents 40 months of consecutive year-over-year increases in home prices nationally. On a month-over-month basis, home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased by 1.7% in June 2015 compared with May 2015.

Including distressed sales, 35 states and the District of Columbia were at or within 10% of their peak prices in June 2015. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia reached new price peaks—Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming. The CoreLogic HPI begins in January 1976.

“The tightness of the for-sale inventory varies across cities. Throughout the U.S., the months’ supply was 4.8 months in the CoreLogic home-listing data for June, but varied greatly across cities. In San Jose and Denver, there was only 1.6 months’ supply of homes on the market, whereas Philadelphia had a 7 months’ supply and Providence had a 6.6 months’ supply,” said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. “The stronger appreciation was registered in cities with limited inventory and strong homebuyer activity, such as San Jose and Denver.”

Excluding distressed sales, home prices increased by 6.4% in June 2015 compared with June 2014 and increased by 1.4% month over month compared with May 2015. Excluding distressed sales, only Massachusetts (-1.5%) and Louisiana (-0.1%) showed year-over-year depreciation in June. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate-owned transactions.
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“The current cycle of home price appreciation is closing in on its fourth year with no apparent end in sight,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “Pent-up buying demand and affordability, together with higher consumer confidence buoyed by a more robust labor market, are a potent mix fueling a 6.5% jump in home prices through June with more increases likely to come.”

Posted in Economics, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 88 Comments

NJ 2016 Outlook

Posted on August 4, 2015 by grim

From Joel Naroff at NJ Business:

The Naroff Review

Overview: “New Jersey’s slow economic recovery continues, but broadening job gains hold out hope that the expansion is starting to pick up steam.”

While New Jersey didn’t get hurt quite as badly as many other states during the Great Recession, its recovery has not kept pace with the nation. But there were special factors that slowed growth, including Superstorm Sandy and the collapse of the Atlantic City casino industry. With those problems fading, the economy is showing signs of coming back.

In June, the New Jersey unemployment rate gapped down to 6.1%, the lowest rate since October 2008. A decent rise in the labor force shows that workers are becoming more confident about finding a job in the state. Still, the progress on the unemployment front has been slow as the rate is well above the nation’s 5.3% level.

Job gains, which tanked with the layoffs in the gaming sector, have accelerated over the past fifteen months. While the 1% increase in payrolls between June 2014 and June 2015 was only one-half the national rate, we are finally seeing gains spread across almost all sectors. Indeed, in June, only one key component, professional and business services, posted job losses over the year.
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The housing market remains the major drag on the economy, though we are starting to see some improvement even here. Housing permit requests are bouncing back. For the first five months of the year they are up 19%, nearly twice the national increase of 11%. That happened despite the continued casino shutdown driven problems in the Atlantic City region.

The real issue, though, is the state’s judicial process for handling foreclosures and the resultant limited action to resolve the problem. While over the past year there was a significant decline in the percentage of homes in foreclosure, in May, 4.9% of the mortgaged homes in New Jersey remained in foreclosure, according to CoreLogic. The next highest state, New York, was at 3.7% while the national rate was just 1.3%. In addition, almost 8.5% of all homeowners are in distress. There is a massive overhang of distressed housing that is restraining prices, sales, construction and economic growth. This problem must be resolved if the state’s economy is to get back to more normal rates of growth.

Outlook: New Jersey’s economy is very much affected by national and international economic trends. My expectation is that the U.S. expansion will pick up steam going forward. That should help drive the state’s economy forward.

Posted in Economics, Foreclosures, Housing Recovery, New Jersey Real Estate | 77 Comments

Don’t you worry about those unintended consequences

Posted on August 3, 2015 by grim

From NJ Spotlight:

REPORT: FORECLOSURES, EMPTY HOMES STILL DRAGGING DOWN NEWARK’S ECONOMY

Baraka’s response – a plan for eminent-domain acquisition of inflated mortgages in two ‘model neighborhoods’ – may be needed citywide.

A new report finds foreclosures and housing vacancies continue to destabilize Newark, and the problems extend well beyond the two small “model neighborhoods” targeted for help by Mayor Ras Baraka.

“This is a problem that kind of spreads out throughout the city,” said Christopher Niedt, an associate professor of sociology at Hofstra University and a co-author of the study, “Our Homes, Our Newark: Foreclosures, Toxic Mortgages and Blight in the City of Newark.”

Without a more comprehensive approach, “We’re still going to see people pushed out of their homes,” Niedt said. That is particularly true for those whose mortgages were packaged into securities sold to investors, a common practice before the Great Recession, he said.

Baraka promised action later this year on a redevelopment plan intended to eliminate blight such as vacant homes. The mayor said it would include a controversial tool, eminent domain, as necessary to bring mortgage payments into line with the housing market.

“We are going to go after some of these distorted mortgages” that have left borrowers paying more than their properties are worth, Baraka told a forum organized by New Jersey Communities United.

The power of eminent domain allows governments to acquire property for public purposes such as roads or schools, even from unwilling sellers. But it frequently has been used to promote private interests, such as shopping centers and casinos.

Baraka acknowledged the tactic raises alarms in many minority communities, which often have been victimized by eminent-domain projects benefitting outside interests. But he said Newark would use it to acquire inflated mortgages, an action which has been discussed in communities across the country but never tried.

“We should be able to use eminent domain to keep people in their homes,” Baraka said.
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The city “has the right and the responsibility to use eminent domain to seize” unrealistic mortgages that have been chopped up and repackaged as private securities, said Trino Scordo, executive director of NJCU.

Baraka’s remarks are “a pretty big deal,” said Udi Ofer, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Previous studies also have documented the prevalence of “predatory” mortgage loans, at inflated interest rates or unrealistic payment terms, in Newark and other New Jersey communities, Ofer said.

“These are really, really, really bad loans,” contributing to continued high foreclosure rates in New Jersey after problems have diminished in most of the country, he added.
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The gap can be significant, Meyer said. For 125 Newark mortgages purchased by NJCC, “the average amount of the loan was $325,000, but the average value of the property was $175,000,” he said.

Moreover, while banks often refuse mortgage modifications to individual borrowers, “they have no problem selling a mortgage at a discount to large private equity firms,” he said.

“We are going to be involved in that struggle” on behalf of residents, Baraka said. But he cautioned that progress “is going to take some time.”

Posted in Foreclosures, Housing Recovery, Mortgages, New Jersey Real Estate, Politics, Risky Lending | 146 Comments

Old people talking nonsense

Posted on August 2, 2015 by grim

From the Economist:

Myths about millennials

ONE of the perks of getting old is that you are allowed to talk nonsense about the young. Plato was said to have complained that young people “disrespect their elders” and “ignore the law”. Peter the Hermit griped that they “think of nothing but themselves” and are “impatient of all restraint”. Today, grizzled business pundits tend to mix in some praise with their gripes. But they abuse the privilege of age as much as anyone ever did.

Such modern-day sages tell employers they must adjust their management styles to meet the expectations of millennials—those born between 1980 and 2000, also known as generation Y. These people are now the largest group in America’s workforce, making up 37% of the total, compared with 34% for the baby-boomers—those born up to the mid-1960s, now retiring in droves. It is often pointed out that millennials are the first generation to have grown up in the digital era. That is true, but much else that is said about them is conjecture. They are said to be natural collaborators. Everything from their education in kindergartens to their participation in social media has turned them into team players. But at the same time they reject careerism and are allergic to being managed. Tamara Erickson, a consultant and author of “Plugged In: The Generation Y Guide to Thriving at Work”, says millennials “think in terms of how to make the most out of today and make sure that what they are doing is meaningful, interesting and challenging.” Andrew Swinand of Abundant Venture Partners, a venture-capital firm, says that doing business responsibly is the millennials’ “new religion”. The only way to attract and retain these highly strung creatures is to turn your offices into open-plan playpens and boost the corporate social responsibility (CSR) budget.

Finding evidence that contradicts all this is not hard. CEB, a consulting firm, polls 90,000 American employees each quarter. It finds that the millennials among them are in fact the most competitive: 59% of them, in the latest poll, said competition is “what gets them up in the morning”, compared with 50% of baby-boomers. Some 58% of millennials said they compare their performance with their peers’, as against 48% for other generations. They may spend much time messaging with other millennials on their smartphones, but they do not have much faith in them. Fully 37% of millennials say they don’t trust their peers’ input at work; for other generations the average was 26%. This is a generation of individualists, not collaborators. As for the idea that they are anti-careerist, CEB’s poll finds that 33% of millennials put “future career opportunity” among their top five reasons for choosing a job, compared with 21% for other generations. Likewise for corporate do-goodery: only 35% of millennials put a high emphasis on CSR, compared with 41% of baby-boomers.
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Jennifer Deal of the Centre for Creative Leadership, an executive-training outfit, and Alec Levenson of the University of Southern California studied 25,000 people in 22 countries and concluded that most generalisations about millennials as employees are “inconsistent at best and destructive at worst.”
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It would be going too far to say that there are no differences between the generations. There are variations in consumption patterns. Young people are much more likely to get their news from BuzzFeed than baby-boomers are. But these do not necessarily translate into different attitudes to work. Ms Deal notes that millennials who have been in a job for a couple of years have much more conventional attitudes to work than those of the same age who are still at university. Some differences in attitudes cross the generations. In CEB’s recent poll, 51% of millennials said they would look for a job at another organisation within the coming year compared with 37% of generation X-ers and 18% of baby-boomers.
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The most striking thing about the research data compiled by the likes of CEB and the Centre for Creative Leadership is how much workers of different generations have in common. They want roughly the same things regardless of when they were born: to be given interesting work to do, to be rewarded on the basis of their contributions and to be given the chance to work hard and get ahead.

Posted in Demographics, Economics | 35 Comments

Shiller: Housing market not efficient enough to trust comps

Posted on August 1, 2015 by grim

From Robert Shiller in the NYT:

The Housing Market Still Isn’t Rational

Home prices have been climbing. They have risen 27 percent nationally since 2012, even more in places like San Francisco. But why worry? If you accept the efficient markets theory — and believe that real estate is an efficient market — then these prices are based on “new information,” even if you don’t know what that information is.

The problem with this kind of thinking is that the efficient markets theory is at best a half-truth, as a voluminous literature on market anomalies shows. What’s more, even that half-truth is grounded mainly in the stock market, which attracts professional investors who sometimes do make the market behave efficiently.

The housing market is another matter. It is far less rational than even the often irrational stock market, for a couple of important reasons. First, most investors find it difficult to understand how housing supply responds to changes in demand. Only a small minority of people think carefully about such things. Second, it is very hard for the minority of smart-money investors who do understand such matters to bet against bubble-level prices in real estate markets. In housing, the smart money has relatively little voice.
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Short-selling helps prevent bubbles from forming, but such negative bets cannot easily occur in the housing market. You can’t routinely borrow a house and sell it, promising to buy back the same house later to repay the loan.

Markets without the possibility of making these negative bets will be inefficient. That’s because if it is not possible to short, the smart money can do no more than avoid holding an overpriced asset. Canny traders are forced to sit on the sidelines, and watch in futility as prices decline as they expected. Without short-sellers, there is nothing to stop a group of ignorant investors — who get some ill-conceived idea that a certain investment is just terrific — from bidding up prices to extravagant levels. In the housing market, that poses an enormous problem.
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During the financial crisis, some professional investors did manage to profit by correctly forecasting home price declines. They used mortgage derivatives such as collateralized debt obligations to place their bets. John Paulson of Paulson & Company is well known for very successfully profiting from his prediction of trouble in the housing market. But mortgages are not homes, and he and others like him did not beat down the emerging housing bubble before it grew out of proportion.
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The bottom line is that there is no reason to assume that the real estate market is even close to efficient. You may want to buy a house if you love it and can afford it. But remember that you cannot safely rely on “comparable sales” to judge that the price is fair. The market isn’t efficient enough for that.

Posted in Economics, National Real Estate | 18 Comments

Even NJ Hates NJ

Posted on July 31, 2015 by grim

From the Star Ledger:

N.J. residents’ positive feelings about their state hits 35-year low, poll shows

New Jersey and you, imperfect together.

The percentage of New Jersey residents considering their state a good or excellent place to live dropped to a 35-year low, according to a Monmouth poll released Thursday.

The poll said 55 percent had a positive opinion about their state, down from 63 percent in February and the lowest percentage recorded since the question was first asked in 1980. The previous low point was 57 percent in August 2011.

Residents felt differently about their hometowns: 71 percent felt positively, virtually unchanged from 72 percent in February.

“New Jerseyans still like their towns and their neighbors,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch. “They’re just having a hard time with the state as a whole.”
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The statewide views lowered the Garden State Quality of Life Index to +18, down from +23 in February. It was last that low in September 2014, and hasn’t dropped below that since September 2010.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Employment, New Jersey Real Estate, Unrest | 119 Comments

Fewer Underwater Homeowners in NJ

Posted on July 30, 2015 by grim

From the Record:

Share of underwater homeowners declines in NJ, US

About one in every seven New Jersey homeowners with mortgages, or 14.6 percent, are “seriously underwater” — owing much more on their mortgages than the home is worth, according to RealtyTrac, a California real-estate information company.

That’s down from 19 percent, or almost one in every five, in the second quarter of 2014. The drop in seriously underwater properties is the result of a rise in home prices, which is giving homeowners more equity.

Nationally, about 7.7 million homeowners, or 13.3 percent of those with mortgages, are seriously underwater, which RealtyTrac defines as owing at least 25 percent more than the property is worth. The percentage of seriously underwater homeowners has dropped from 17.2 in the second quarter of 2014.

Unsurprisingly, homes bought during the housing boom — when mortgage standards loosened and home prices soared — account for a large share of all those seriously underwater. Nationally, homes owned for seven to 11 years accounted for 38 percent of all seriously underwater properties, RealtyTrac said Wednesday.

Underwater mortgages affect the entire housing market, because people who owe more than their homes are worth can’t sell without taking a loss. That has led to a low inventory of homes for sale, slowing housing activity. In addition, underwater homeowners who struggle to pay their mortgages can’t simply solve their problems by selling the home.

Posted in Economics, Housing Recovery, New Jersey Real Estate | 218 Comments

Case Shiller – US Up 4.4% YOY in May

Posted on July 29, 2015 by grim

From the WSJ:

Home-Price Growth Remained Solid in May

Home prices made solid gains in May, according to a report released Tuesday, as home price growth appears to be largely flattening out after a long, uneven recovery.

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, covering the entire nation, rose 4.4% in the 12 months ended in May, slightly greater than a 4.3% increase in April.

The 10-city and 20-city indexes saw similar increases in May as in April. The 10-city index gained 4.7% from a year earlier, slightly stronger than a 4.6% increase in April. The 20-city index gained 4.9% year-over-year, identical to the increase in April.

Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expected a 5.7% increase to the 20-city index.
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Price gains have remained largely flat in 2015 at just over 4%, after low double-digit gains in 2013. Economists said that is likely a good sign that the market is stabilizing closer to levels that most buyers can afford.

David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said that price gains are likely to continue slowing, eventually stabilizing at around 3%.

Posted in Economics, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 139 Comments

NJ Building Permits Near 30 Year High

Posted on July 28, 2015 by grim

From the Star Ledger:

N.J. home building permits soar to nearly 30-year high

Homebuilders in New Jersey received more permits in June than they had in nearly 30 years, new data shows.

Roughly 4,800 permits were authorized in New Jersey last month, the U.S. Census Bureau reported, an increase of 12 percent from May. Nearly 80 percent of the permits obtained in June were for multifamily projects, the data shows.

Patrick O’Keefe, director of economic research at CohnReznick, said the 4,792 units authorized in June represent the largest number of permits obtained since mid-1988. The 3,776 multifamily units approved in June was the highest level of any month from 1980 forward, he said.

“It was the third consecutive month in which multifamily authorizations reached a historic peak,” O’Keefe said in a memo.

More than 1,000 single-family permits were obtained in June, the Census data shows, a jump of roughly 29 percent over May. June was only the fifth month since the beginning of 2008 that more than 1,000 single-family construction permits were issued, O’Keefe said.

Posted in Economics, New Development, New Jersey Real Estate | 230 Comments

Home prices near peaks across US

Posted on July 27, 2015 by grim

From HousingWire:

Black Knight: Home prices approach pre-crisis peak

Home prices are approaching their pre-crisis peak, according to a new report from Black Knight Financial Services (BKFS).

Black Knight’s latest Home Price Index report, based on May 2015 residential real estate transactions, showed that the U.S. HPI is now just 6.5% off the June 2006 peak of $268,000, and up over 25% from the market’s bottom.

The Black Knight HPI combines the company’s extensive property and loan-level databases to produce a repeat sales analysis of home prices as of their transaction dates every month for each of more than 18,500 U.S. ZIP codes.

The Black Knight HPI represents the price of non-distressed sales by taking into account price discounts for REO and short sales.

According to Black Knight’s report, the HPI now rests at $251,000, up 1.1% over the previous month and up 5.1% over the previous year.

New York led gains among the states, seeing a 1.8% in month-over-month appreciation.
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Of the nation’s 40 largest metros, 12 hit new peaks:

Austin, TX up 1.0% to $279,000
Boston, MA $up 1.5% to 402,000
Columbus, OH up 0.7% to $184,000
Dallas, TX up 1.0% to $211,000
Denver, CO up 1.5% to $318,000
Houston, TX up 0.9% to $215,000
Nashville, TN up 1.2% to $216,000
Pittsburgh, PA up 1.4% to $187,000
Portland, OR up 1.4% to $311,000
San Antonio, TX up 0.8% to $190,000
San Francisco, CA up 1.5% to $713,000
San Jose, CA up 1.1% to $854,000
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The top 10 movers on the state level were:

New York: 1.8%
Vermont: 1.6%
New Jersey: 1.6%
Connecticut: 1.6%
New Hampshire: 1.6%
Rhode Island: 1.6%
Pennsylvania: 1.5%
Massachusetts: 1.5%
Oregon: 1.4%
Colorado: 1.4%

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 132 Comments