4 Statistics Waiting Buyers Should Know

February 20th, 2008 categories: Local Issues, Market Statistics

There is a lot that economist look at when forecasting the growth or decline of a real estate market.

Here are four stats that reveal the PENT UP activity taking place in our current market taken from the past couple of years. These stats are taken from an article written by Lawrence Yun, Cheif Economist with the National Association Of Realtors. You can read the whole article here.

1. Net job gains have increased by 4.3 million according to both company payroll data and household survey data.

2. U.S. aggregate personal income has risen by $1.4 trillion over the past two years.

3. These job gains should have translated into 2 million additional homeowners, however there were only 600,000. During the same time period, housing affordability has improved, income has risen, and conforming mortgage rates are near a historic low.

4. With normal population and job increases, household formation typically expands by 1.2 million to 1.5 million a year.

These stats obviously reveal that many buyers are holding out for the right time to buy. The question is, what will be their sign? When will they know it is time to buy?

My assumption is that we will not see a huge increase in purchasers until they see that prices are stabilizing.

Lawrence Yun, Cheif Economist says, “Though pent-up demand clearly exists, it is still tricky to anticipate when a meaningful recovery will take place. I do not foresee any major existing-home sales declines from this point onwards, but sales could remain at their current soft pace for a while. Will it be spring or summer or fall when we will see a notable pick-up in home sales? Difficult to say, but it will happen in 2008.”