Rise in national vacancy rate not worth panicking over

The national vacancy rate is estimated to have reached 13 percent. Since that figure does not reflect how several of those houses are the; second, third or fifty-seventh home owned by the wealthy, that figure is incredibly misleading. The housing market is certainly down, but not entirely out.

Wealthy buying fewer homes in vacation hot spots

The media report numerous economic indicators, and statistics regarding real estate can cause a sense of doom on the horizon concerning the housing market. For instance, CNN recently published an article that said up to 13 percent of homes sit empty in The United States. That is a misleading statistic; CNN points out that many of the vacancies are in areas like Maine, Arizona and Florida — popular places for vacation homes. There was an increase in the last four years in vacancies from 12.1 percent to 13 percent. That is less than a 1 percent increase.

You will find more pending sales

Pending sales, homes that are being officially in the process of being sold, increased by 2.1 percent over February, according to Bloomberg. In the last few months, the number of homes selling went down. The cold conditions caused this. The housing market is not doing also still considering pending sales for February 2011 were 8.2 percent lower than they were in February 2010. Reuters reports that National Realtor's Association's chief economist Lawrence Yun believes that in 2011, older homes will sell faster than new homes meaning an increase in existing homes sales. The costs of new homes are much higher than the prices of old homes. This is how the market is right now.

Could there be a second crash?

When it comes to housing market news, the ides of a second crash is one that keeps coming back. The reality is that sales are slow, houses aren’t worth as much as they used to be, and banks may be less willing to lend. While loan providers continue to worry about lending in this economy, you will find also fewer people willing to purchase houses keeping prices low. More than likely, the individuals buying homes now will get good news. More good news shows that people who own now may have their home costs go up in the next few years also.

Citations

CNN

money.cnn.com/2011/03/28/real_estate/us_housing_vacancy_rates/index.htm?hpt=T2

Bloomberg

bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-28/pending-sales-of-u-s-existing-homes-unexpectedly-climbed-2-1-in-february.html

Reuters

reuters.com/article/2011/03/28/us-usa-economy-housing-idUSTRE72F3XG20110328