Housing starts give mixed signals about recovery

Posted on October 21, 2009 by grim

From the AP:

Meltdown 101: Housing starts show industry’s woes

Housing construction is crawling out of its very deep hole, but no one expects it to reach the heights hit before the housing bubble burst — at least not for a very long time.

The Commerce Department released its monthly report on housing starts Tuesday, saying they increased in September by a modest 0.5 percent to an annual rate of 590,000 new homes and apartments. Applications for new building permits, however, fell by 1.2 percent to an annual rate of 573,000 units.

Here are some questions and answers about the housing starts report and what it says about the state of housing and the overall economy.
…
Q: What has been happening to housing starts?

A: They have been on a wild roller-coaster ride.

They surged into the stratosphere during the housing boom in the middle of the decade as cheap credit propelled sales of both new and existing homes to record levels for five straight years. To meet demand, builders ramped up production, pushing construction starts to 2.07 million units in 2005, close to the all-time high for housing starts of 2.36 million new homes and apartments constructed in 1972.

Q: What happened after 2005?

A: Housing has been in a painful, prolonged slump. Housing starts hit an all-time low this past April of 479,000 units at an annual rate, 79 percent below the peak month during the boom years. Since April, however, housing construction has staged a modest rebound, rising in four of the past five months, including the 0.5 percent gain in September that was reported Tuesday.

Q: So is that good?

A: Well it is certainly better than the plunge in construction that occurred over the past 3 1/2 years. The downturn in housing, accompanied by rising mortgage defaults, helped trigger the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression and pushed the country into its longest recession in seven decades.

A rebound in housing is needed to help support overall economic growth — both directly, through the money spent to build new homes, and indirectly, through the support increases in home sales provide to related industries such as appliance makers and furniture stores.

Q: What do economists expect will happen in coming months?

A: The September housing starts report gave some mixed signals. Housing starts did rise but the report showed that permits for new construction fell for the second month out of the past three. And analysts closely follow building permits as a good indication of future activity.

Analysts suspect that the September permit decline was a payback from a jump in applications earlier in the summer, as builders rushed to get projects started in time to take advantage of the government’s $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers. That program is scheduled to end Nov. 30.

Posted in Housing Bubble, National Real Estate, New Development | 146 Comments

Dwek to plead guilty

Posted on October 20, 2009 by grim

From the Star Ledger:

Solomon Dwek, central witness in N.J. corruption probe, is expected to plead guilty to bank fraud charges

Solomon Dwek, the key witness in the massive federal corruption and money laundering sting that rocked the state’s political landscape, is expected to plead guilty today to charges in connection with a $50 million bank fraud in 2006 that first brought him to the attention of authorities.

Dwek, 36, is to appear first in federal court. Later in the day, he is expected to be in Superior Court in Monmouth County to plead to similar state charges, according to a person familiar with the investigation who did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to speak about the matter.

Officials at the U.S. Attorney’s office issued an advisory saying only that “a central figure” in the July 23 arrests of 43 people on public corruption and money laundering charges would appear in federal court Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Jose L. Linares in Newark. A spokesman for the office declined to answer questions and Dwek’s attorney did not return calls to his office.

Dwek was initially arrested on the fraud charges in May 2006 after he deposited a bogus $25.2 million check into a closed PNC Bank account he controlled. According to the original criminal complaint, Dwek went to a drive-in window at the bank’s Eatontown branch. The check was drawn on an account he controlled, but the account had been closed and had no money in it.

Posted in New Jersey Real Estate, Politics | 168 Comments

Pro athletes to save the high-end!

Posted on October 19, 2009 by grim

Sure hope we’ve got enough of them, there are currently 332 homes for sale over $2m in Essex, Hunterdon, Morris, Somerset, Sussex and Union (GSMLS). That number goes up to 600 homes when you add in Passaic, Hudson, and Bergen (NJMLS).

From the NY Times:

Pitching to Professional Athletes

STEVE NEEDLE, a developer, thought a year ago that he had sold a $3 million castle-style mansion in Westfield even before his firm had finished construction.

But the buyer, employed as a Wall Street stock trader at the time, lost his financial footing in the crash last year.

“He could not complete,” Mr. Needle said, referring to the buyer and the sale, but sounding rather as though he was talking about a quarterback aiming for the end zone.

As things are turning out, his metaphor may be quite apt. With the Wall Street bonus-earning, mansion-buying client base sharply reduced at this point, Mr. Needle and other developers say they are trying to pivot, and make direct pitches to another elite group less affected by recessionary times: professional athletes.

“This area always depended so much on Wall Street, hedge fund money and to an extent ‘big pharma’ execs,” said Mr. Needle, whose Westfield-based company is called Needle Point Homes. “But the market has changed so much in the last year, and the buyer stream is sort of down to a trickle.”

His broker, Arlene Gonnella, a top-performing agent at Weichert Realtors for the last six years, said she recently “refocused” her marketing of the most lavish homes in the Short Hills area, where she is based, on sports agents and recruiters who might refer players looking to relocate.
…
“There are actually a lot of pro athletes out there looking for homes right now,” said Ms. Gonnella, who noted that she had shown the Jets linebacker Bart Scott and his wife, Darnesha, several houses in Short Hills last summer, after Mr. Scott was wooed to the Jets by Rex Ryan, the coach, who lives in Summit.

Posted in Economics, New Jersey Real Estate | 224 Comments

Weekend Open Discussion

Posted on October 17, 2009 by grim

This is the time and place to post observations about your local areas, comments on news stories or the New Jersey housing market, open house reports, etc. If you have any questions you wanted to ask earlier in the week but never posted them up, let’s have them. Also a good place to post suggestions, requests for information, criticism, and praise.

For readers that have never commented, there is a link at the top of each message that is typically labelled “[#] Comments“. Go ahead and give that a click, you might be missing out on a world of information you didn’t know about. While you are there, introduce yourselves to everyone.

For new readers that have only read the messages displayed on the main page, take a look through the archives, a substantial amount of information has been put online in the past year. The archives can be accessed by using the links found in the menus on the right hand side of the page.

Posted in General | 148 Comments

Ponzi Jr Facing 10 Years

Posted on October 16, 2009 by grim

From the Daily Record:

Morris woman admits to $1.2 million real estate scam

A Convent Station woman faces up to a decade in prison after admitting in court Thursday that she accepted $1.2 million from investors but didn’t follow up with promises to purchase homes in foreclosure, re-sell them, and split the profits.

Leigh O’Neill, 38, pleaded guilty before state Superior Court Judge Salem Vincent Ahto in Morristown, to one count of theft by deception between July 2005 and Oct. 31, 2006.

Under questioning by defense attorney Deborah Factor, O’Neill — in a barely audible voice — said she approached investors with a plan to buy distressed properties and re-sell them. Court papers filed in connection with lawsuits against O’Neill said she purported to buy homes facing foreclosure in Randolph, Long Beach Island, Sparta, Parsippany and Roxbury, and that her plan was to re-sell them and split net profits with the investors so that they received 70 percent and she got 30 percent.

In reality, O’Neill said in court, she bought no properties but gave investors the impression she did, and used money provided to her by some investors to pay off others. [aka Ponzi scheme, jb]
…
“Even though this defendant has paid substantial restitution, the fact remains that this continuing course of defrauding investors needs to be punished,” Prosecutor Robert A. Bianchi said. “We will ask the court to impose a 10-year state prison sentence which we believe is appropriate considering the scope and breadth of this fraud.” Investors in 2006 filed suit against O’Neill, which led to a criminal investigation that was spearheaded by prosecutor’s office Detective Steve Murzenski.

Posted in Foreclosures, New Jersey Real Estate | 293 Comments

RealtyTrac: “They were the worst three months of all time”

Posted on October 15, 2009 by grim

From RealtyTrac:

U.S. FORECLOSURE ACTIVITY INCREASES 5 PERCENT IN Q3

New Jersey – Q3 Foreclosure Activity
Lis Pendens – 11,816 (Defaults)
Notice of Sale – 3,878
REO – 2,414

From Bloomberg:

U.S. Foreclosure Filings Jump 23% to Record in Third Quarter

U.S. foreclosure filings climbed to a record in the third quarter as lenders seized more properties from delinquent borrowers, according to RealtyTrac Inc.

A total of 937,840 homes received a default or auction notice or were repossessed by banks, a 23 percent increase from a year earlier, the Irvine, California-based seller of default data said today in a report. One out of every 136 U.S. households received a filing, the highest quarterly rate in records dating to January 2005.

“The problem is prime loans going into foreclosure and people being underwater and losing their jobs,” Richard Green, director of the Lusk Center for Real Estate at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, said in an interview. “It’s a really bad number.”

Mounting foreclosures mean U.S. home prices probably will resume falling, analysts from Amherst Securities Group LP in New York said Sept. 23. A “shadow inventory” of 7 million properties are in the foreclosure process or likely to be seized, up from 1.27 million in 2005, they said.

The pace of prime and so-called alt-A loan defaults is accelerating as subprime defaults slow, Standard & Poor’s analysts led by Diane Westerback said yesterday in a report. Prime loans are those made to borrowers with the best credit records while alt-A loans are considered riskier because they were often granted without documenting the borrower’s income.

From CNN/Money:

Foreclosures: ‘Worst three months of all time’

Despite concerted government-led and lender-supported efforts to prevent foreclosures, the number of filings hit a record high in the third quarter.

“They were the worst three months of all time,” said RealtyTrac spokesman Rick Sharga.

During that time, 937,840 homes received a foreclosure letter — whether a default notice, auction notice or bank repossession — according to RealtyTrac, the online marketer of foreclosed homes. That means one in every 136 U.S. homes were in foreclosure, which is a 5% increase from the second quarter and a 23% jump over the third quarter of 2008.

Posted in Foreclosures, National Real Estate | 260 Comments

NJ September Unemployment 9.8%

Posted on October 14, 2009 by grim

From the Record:

State’s jobless rate climbs to 32-year high of 9.8 percent in September

New Jersey’s unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent in September, the highest since 1977, state labor officials said today. The rate matched the national rate.

The number of jobs in the Garden State fell by 12,700, with 12,000 of the losses in the private sector.

“The latest national and state employment estimates show that New Jersey was not immune from the national trend,” said New Jersey Labor Commissioner David J. Socolow.

From the Star Ledger:

N.J. unemployment rate inches up to 9.8 percent

The New Jersey unemployment rate inched up from 9.7 percent to 9.8 percent in September, exactly tracking the national rate, the state labor department said today.

The state’s private sector lost 12,000 jobs from August to September, as well as 700 public sector jobs, according to an employment survey. Total nonfarm employment slipped to 3,917,700, down from 4,046,600 a year ago.

The private sector slip is a particular disappointment, because over the summer the private sector looked as if it were making small but steady gains since a May low of 3,279,800 jobs.

From the Philly Inquirer:

N.J. jobs drop, unemployment rises.

New Jersey’s unemployment rate continued to rise in September, hitting 9.8 percent of the workforce, the highest in 32 years.

At the same time, the number of state residents with jobs fell after two months of gains, the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development reported today.

The jobless rate was up from 9.6 percent in August and matched the national rate for September, the report showed. The state’s unemployment rate was last at 9.8 percent in April 1977.
…
In September, seven of New Jersey’s 10 industry sectors posted job losses – with the largest decline coming in construction (4,000 jobs), the department said. Even the health services/education sector, which typically increases employment month-to-month, lost 1,000 jobs in September.

Financial services gained 1,200 jobs last month, and leisure/hospitality was up 1,000, the state said. One sector, natural resources/mining, was unchanged.

The state’s total number of jobless people rose by 8,000 in September to 444,900.

Employment fell by 12,700 to 3,917,700.

Posted in Economics, New Jersey Real Estate | 50 Comments

Will the housing credit become untouchable?

Posted on October 14, 2009 by grim

If critics think the credit is so supportive, what are the chances that the credit becomes not only permanant, but as untouchable as the mortgage interest deduction?

From CNN/Money:

Push on to expand $8,000 tax credit

Congress is considering proposals to greatly expand a soon-to-expire $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers — potentially applying it to all but the wealthiest homebuyers.

Supporters say doing so would further boost home sales, stabilize housing prices and generate jobs. Opponents say extending and expanding the credit would be a waste of money and only temporarily stave off further price declines.

The credit now can be claimed by anyone buying a home who has not owned one for three years and who closes the deal by Nov. 30.

Beyond extending that deadline, some lawmakers want to make the credit available to all homebuyers who meet income eligibility requirements. And some want to increase the amount of the credit from $8,000 to $15,000.
…
Opponents of extending and expanding the credit worry that such moves offer poor bang for the buck and won’t stem housing declines.

“Everything spent on this program will ultimately have to be paid for later through higher, economically harmful taxes,” Ted Gayer, co-director of economic studies at the Brookings Institution, wrote in a Brookings blog.

Assuming there are 5.5 million home sales in 2010, Gayer said, expanding the credit to all homeowners “is poorly targeted because it would give a credit to 5.5 million homebuyers who would have bought a home anyway.”

The current credit was estimated to cost federal coffers $6.64 billion over 10 years. But Gayer notes that the cost is likely to be much higher since more people than expected took advantage of it but only about 15% of people wouldn’t have bought a house otherwise.

Posted in Economics, National Real Estate | 213 Comments

NEWSFLASH! Taxes are high in Millburn

Posted on October 13, 2009 by grim

Thought this was obvious, especially since the average home price is over a million. Hard to swallow an argument about a “poor homeowner” who can’t afford taxes when you are talking about Millburn. How about you sell the house and move a town over? You’d probably make a fortune doing it too.

From the Star Ledger:

Millburn residents suffer under property taxes that are highest in N.J., nation

The little pond in Taylor Park here was once the town swimming hole.

Today, the town pool at Gero Park has a water slide in the big pool, a waterfall umbrella in the wading pool, and a snack bar. The tennis courts there are lit at night, and there is a roller hockey rink. Nearby is a par 3 golf course. Millburn’s tax dollars at work.

Like many New Jersey towns, Millburn’s schools, services and recreation have grown exponentially during the past few decades, much of it paid for by property taxes. In Millburn, the average homeowner pays $18,159 a year in property taxes.

“We’re the highest town in the highest state, so that must mean we’re the highest in the nation,” said Tom Thomas, a formermayor and member of the Old Guard, which meets every Thursday in an old civic center next to the pond.

Yes, New Jersey’s property taxes are the nation’s highest. It is government’s sustenance: Property taxes account for 45 percent of all tax revenue raised in New Jersey. The national average is 29 percent.

Some say high property taxes have turned into a terminal disease for the state. High taxes and high home prices are conspiring to drive people out, which, in time, will flat-line New Jersey’s real estate values — if it hasn’t already. New Jersey: First in property taxes, near first in resident exits. Since 2000, the state lost 163,000 households and $12.8 billion in gross income.
…
Even this may not help senior citizens in high-end towns, where property values drive taxes upwards into the $25,000 to $40,000 range.

“This is especially prevalent among seniors, who are finding it difficult to stay in their homes in New Jersey,” Moran said.
…
The high taxes are linked by formula to property values. Millburn’s average home price, which is $1,088,148, but many seniors don’t want to cash out. They want to stay.

Posted in New Jersey Real Estate, Property Taxes | 225 Comments

Foreclosures no longer a “low-end” trend

Posted on October 12, 2009 by grim

From the Wall Street Journal:

Foreclosures Grow in Housing Market’s Top Tiers

New data suggest that foreclosures are rising in more expensive housing markets.

About 30% of foreclosures in June involved homes in the top third of local housing values, up from 16% when the foreclosure crisis began three years ago, according to new data from real-estate Web site Zillow.com. The bottom one-third of housing markets, by home value, now account for 35% of foreclosures, down from 55% in 2006.

The report shows that foreclosures, after declining earlier this year, began to accelerate in the late spring and that more expensive homes have more recently accounted for a growing share of all foreclosures. “The slope of that curve in recent months is much sharper than it was recently,” said Stan Humphries, chief economist for Zillow. Rising foreclosures among more-expensive homes could create added pressure for a housing market that has shown signs of stabilizing in recent months as sales of lower-priced homes pick up.
…
Foreclosures are rising in more expensive markets as home values in those areas fall, leaving more homeowners with mortgages that exceed the value of their properties. Prime loans accounted for 58% of foreclosure starts in the second quarter, up from 44% last year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Subprime mortgages accounted for one-third of foreclosure starts, down from one-half last year.

The prime category includes so-called exotic mortgages that were increasingly used to buy more expensive homes, including interest-only mortgages that allowed borrowers to defer principal payments during an initial period. Borrowers often aren’t able to refinance out of these products because the drop in home values has left them with little equity in their homes.

Posted in Foreclosures, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate | 173 Comments

South Jersey slammed by foreclosures

Posted on October 11, 2009 by grim

From the Courier Post:

Foreclosure bites South Jersey hard

When first-time home buyer Derrick Hannah saw a three-bedroom ranch home in Willingboro, he fell in love with its spotless kitchen and its expansive backyard with a patio.

But, a couple of years ago, after buying it for $80,500 with no down payment, the father of three lost his computer job and later was served a foreclosure notice. He refinanced his mortgage three times to avoid foreclosure until he owed $185,000 on the same home, valued at $224,000 just two years ago.

This week, he finally sold his home at 48 Edgemont Lane in Garfield East — but for only $130,000 — to a single parent family in a “short” sale, which leaves the mortgage lender $55,000 short of the total loan amount but which allows Hannah to leave his home with no mortgage debt.
…
Willingboro, a municipality with lower median incomes, has been especially affected by foreclosures. It had the highest number so far this year in the tri-county area of Burlington, Camden and Gloucester with 330, but even wealthier communities are at the top of the foreclosures list.

Gloucester Township was second in the region with 323 foreclosures so far this year, followed by Winslow at 298, Camden at 256 and Washington Township at 206. Except for Camden, the other three municipalities have higher median incomes than Willingboro.
…
The highest number of monthly foreclosures ever filed against property owners in New Jersey — 6,133 — occurred in June and then fell to 5,813 by July, which was still more than in July 2008.

In the tri-county area, the more populous Camden County led with 2,214 foreclosures for the first seven months of this year, according to figures provided by the state Administrative Office of the Courts through July 31. Burlington County had the second highest total with 1,904 followed by the least populated Gloucester County with 1,301.
…
Burlington County Freeholder Christopher Brown of Marlton, who owns ReMax real estate and title insurance agencies, said short sales now represent about 55 percent of the home resale market.

Posted in Foreclosures, South Jersey Real Estate | 83 Comments

Wealthy foreigners buying homes?

Posted on October 9, 2009 by grim

From the NY Times:

Overall, International Interest in U.S. Real Estate Has Waned

Despite plummeting prices, international interest in United States property cooled in the last year, according to an annual survey by the National Association of Realtors, a U.S. organization of property agents.

From May 2008 to May 2009 foreign nationals purchased an estimated 154,000 homes in the United States, down from 170,000 in the previous 12 months, the survey found. Twenty-three percent of the agents questioned reported at least one contact with an international client, down from 26 percent in 2008 and 32 percent in 2007.
…
And agents in the top four states for international sales — Florida, California, Texas and Arizona — reported their international business actually increased 35 to 45 percent in the period.
…
In May 2009, with currency exchange ranges fluctuating, the average U.S. home price was $218,300, compared with $278,100 in Canada and $237,900 in Britain, according to the association’s data.
…
International buyers paid a median price of $247,100 for existing homes, compared with a median sales price of $198,100 in 2008, the new study found. Buyers from India paid the highest median price, $322,200.

Most international buyers came from Canada, Britain, Mexico, India and China, in that order, the survey showed. And while the numbers from Canada, Britain and China declined, those from Mexico and India increased.

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate | 314 Comments

Home Prices To Recover … By 2020 (or 2030)

Posted on October 8, 2009 by grim

From Reuters:

The Flood of Foreclosures Shows No Sign of Ebbing

Every 13 seconds in America, there is another foreclosure filing. That’s the rhythm of a crisis that threatens to choke off hopes for a recovery in the U.S. housing market as it destroys hundreds of billions of dollars in property values a year.

There are more than 6,600 home foreclosure filings per day, according to the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonpartisan watchdog group based in Durham, North Carolina. With nearly two million already this year, the flood of foreclosures shows no sign of abating any time soon.

If anything, the country’s worst housing downturn since record-keeping began in the late 19th century may only get worse since foreclosures, which started with subprime borrowers, have now moved on to the much bigger prime loan market on the back of mounting unemployment.

In congressional testimony last month Michael Barr, the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for financial institutions, said more than 6 million families could face foreclosure over the next three years.
…
The Center for Responsible Lending says foreclosures are on track to wipe out $502 billion in property values this year.

That spillover effect from foreclosures is one reason why Celia Chen of Moody’s Economy.com says nationwide home prices won’t regain the peak levels they reached in 2006 until 2020.

In states hardest-hit by the housing bust, like Florida and California, the rebound will take until 2030, Chen predicted.

“The default rates, the delinquency rates, are still rising,” Chen told Reuters. “Rising joblessness combined with a large degree of negative equity are going to cause foreclosures to increase,” she added.

Anyone doubting that the recovery in U.S. real estate prices will be long and hard should take a look at Japan, Chen said.

Prices there are still off about 50 percent from the peak they hit 15 years ago.

Posted in Foreclosures, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate | 293 Comments

NJ Rep. Scott Garrett Pushes for FHA Risk Reduction

Posted on October 7, 2009 by grim

From HousingWire:

Bill Raises Required Down Payment to 5% for FHA Loans

A bill introduced in Congress Monday would increase the minimum down payment for Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured mortgages from 3.5% to 5%.

The FHA Taxpayer Protection Act of 2009 — HR 3706 — would also prohibit financing initial service charges, appraisals, inspections, or other fees or closing costs with any part of an FHA mortgage.

The bill’s author, Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), said the current policy of allowing closing costs to be rolled into the mortgage effectively reduces FHA down payments to as low as 2.5% because borrowers don’t have to have as much cash on hand at closing.

“[T]he benefits of promoting homeownership using government subsidies must be balanced against the potential risk of insuring less creditworthy borrowers and exposing the American taxpayer to that risk,” Garrett said in a statement on his Web site. “As we have learned repeatedly throughout the mortgage crisis, the amount of equity a homeowner has in their home directly correlates to the credit risk associated to their mortgage.”
…
The bill also calls for the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a review of the FHA’s fiscal stability and the state of the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund, including the appropriate capital ratio of the fund, and how that ratio affects broader housing market. The bill also calls for an examination of the housing market’s dependence on the fund since the mortgage crisis began.
…
The market share of FHA mortgages has increased from 3% in 2006 to more than 20% in 2009, and the rate of delinquency for FHA loans is also on the rise, currently more than 14%, according to testimony Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) inspector general Kenneth Donohue gave to Congress in April.

Posted in Economics, National Real Estate, Risky Lending | 183 Comments

Apartment vacancies near record highs

Posted on October 6, 2009 by grim

From Reuters:

US apartment vacancy rate hits 23-year high-report

The U.S. apartment market in the third quarter turned in one of its weakest performances ever as the national vacancy rate hit a 23-year high despite being propped up by landlords willing to take lower rent to keep tenants, according to real estate research firm Reis Inc.

The U.S. apartment vacancy rate rose to 7.8 percent in the third quarter, its highest since 1986, according to the report released on Tuesday. Vacancies have been rising since the third quarter of 2007, according to Reis.

The U.S. apartment market has been reeling for more than a year as its main demand driver, job growth, disappeared in the U.S. recession.
…
Reis still expects the U.S. apartment vacancy rate to pass the 8 percent mark by perhaps next quarter but certainly by next year, Calanog said. That would make it the highest vacancy rate since Reis began tracking the market in 1980.

In the third quarter, the U.S. apartment asking rental rate fell 0.5 percent to $1,035 per month, the fourth consecutive declining quarter. Factoring in months of free rent and other perks landlords have been using to lure or keep tenants, effective rent fell 0.3 percent to $972, also the fourth consecutive quarter of declining rent.

“We have not seen that before,” Calanog said.

“Vacancy could be worse if landlords didn’t realize fairly early on that this end game was not going to end well and lowered rents really quickly,” he said.

Reis does not foresee a turnaround in the apartment market until at least the second quarter of 2010 at the earliest.

“That turnaround may be very tepid,” he said. “It might just be that vacancies are flat.”
…
In New York, the largest U.S. apartment market, the vacancy rate fell 0.10 percentage points to 2.9 percent. Effective rent fell 0.9 percent to $2,657 per month.

“With job markets still being lost at the national level and with New York being relatively more dependent on the still-embattled financial services sector, it may take a few more quarters before we see rents bottoming out in the Big Apple,” Calanog cautioned.

Posted in Economics, National Real Estate | 265 Comments