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A Departure From When Lack Of Inventory Was Blamed For A Slowdown

A report from the Pueblo Chieftain in Colorado. “The trend of slower sales in many of Colorado’s previously red-hot housing markets reached Pueblo in September. Pueblo area home sales were down 21 percent last month from a year earlier, according to Colorado Association of Realtors data. Until last month, sales were running about even with last year’s numbers. ‘The numbers clearly reflected the slowdown our local agents felt,’ said David Anderson, president of the Pueblo Association of Realtors. ‘Compared to last year, new listings were flat, pending sales dropped just over 8 percent and sold listings were down.'”

“Statewide, large chunks of Colorado’s once red-hot housing market began cooling a bit earlier in the year, led by a sales drop in the Denver Metro area, according to state association data. Pueblo was among the markets where sales waited to cool off.”

“Now, among the state’s larger markets, sales remain near their peaks only in the Fort Collins-Loveland, Greeley and Longmont-Boulder areas. In Colorado Springs and many areas of the Denver metro area, sales were down about 17 percent in September from a year ago and median prices were starting to flatten, according to the Realtors’ data.”

“The areas slowing the most around Denver include suburban counties such as Douglas, Arapahoe and Adams, data show. Elsewhere in the state, September sales in the Grand Junction area were down 19 percent from a year earlier.”

“The trend represents an opportunity for buyers, the state association said. ‘Colorado homebuyers may be feeling a little bit of relief as a combination of seasonal and market factors have helped to slow down the fast-paced, over-asking-price sales and hold steady or even drop the median sales price in many parts of the metro area and state,’ the group said in a statement.”

The Rockland/Westchester Journal News in New York. “The residential market in the Lower Hudson Valley shows signs of a slowdown. The report, issued by the Hudson Gateway Multiple Listing Services, signals a departure from the trend in recent quarters when the lack of inventory was blamed for a sales slowdown in the heated market.”

“In Westchester, the number of overall sales from July to September was 3,022, the lowest in the past four years, or a decrease of 5.2 percent from a year ago when the figure was 3,189. Meanwhile, the end-of-quarter inventory slightly increased to 4,175 from a year ago when the figure was 4,135, reversing a downward trend since 2014.”

“Jennifer Mallory, regional vice president of HGAR, said the market, which has been heating up in the past few years, is in correction mode. ‘The market runs in cycle, and you can’t have the entire time upward. At a certain point it goes down,’ she said, ‘It’s part of the natural cycle.'”

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This Post Has 31 Comments

  1. ‘The trend of slower sales in many of Colorado’s previously red-hot housing markets reached Pueblo’

    Eeee-bola Pueblo!

    1. Pueblo is a gang-infested, crime-ridden sprawl of barrio neighborhoods that are dicey in broad daylight and dangerous after dark. Can’t understand why anyone would pay more than $25K for a house in most Pueblo ‘hoods.

      1. “Can’t understand why anyone would pay more than $25K for a house in most Pueblo ‘hoods.”

        Need a new meth lab or stash house for illegals?

  2. ‘In Colorado Springs and many areas of the Denver metro area, sales were down about 17 percent in September from a year ago and median prices were starting to flatten’

    ‘The areas slowing the most around Denver include suburban counties such as Douglas, Arapahoe and Adams, data show. Elsewhere in the state, September sales in the Grand Junction area were down 19 percent from a year earlier’

    Even the media is reporting on the contagion like aspect of this. Just how is this possible? We’ve been told it was all about fundamentals. How could the fundamentals in so many towns and cities change, at the exact same time, all across the country?

    1. The fundamentals did change, but not the fundamentals REIC like to talk about.

      You’d never hear REIC talk about people going dangerously into debt to buy their product and how that just got more expensive. And you with won’t hear them talk about people speculating with loads of debt on their product and how the speculation is getting less attractive.

      1. ‘It’s part of the natural cycle.’

        Actually Jennifer, that is a bold lie. It’s part of the biggest stupidest mania and credit binge in history. Say hello to normal on the way down, but say it quickly because the train doesn’t stop there.

    1. ‘For the time being, I think it’s reasonable to say that a slowdown has arrived’

      I hear the wings of crows flying over San Diego.

        1. I keep watching the slow progress to finish doubling the floor space of a cliffside house near where I work. It seems like the construction project has already been underway for many years. I’m 99 percent confident the house will go for sale at above market value and will either never sell or will be offloaded through an accidental Dutch auction after massive list price reductions.

    2. Clear signs of slowing but three months of inventory now compared to almost 16 months in 2007 suggest that big price reductions will not be coming unless the slow pace of sales continues for quite a while.

      3. The supply will come quickly. I think Seattle is a great example where in about two-months inventory levels back into the 2012 range.

        We are just starting to lap the major Debt-to-income change from 2017 when it was moved from 45% to 50%. We don’t lap the 5% loan limit increase until January. If they don’t raise loan limits again in January, suddenly debt financing will be a apple-to-apples comparison in the Spring and prices are going to be down across the entire country.

        But I agree that it will take time for prices to start to drop. And I imagine the government is going to try and fight it will more stimulus the way they have successfully done since 2011.

    3. Quite amazing how so many markets in such diverse locations are hitting the skids simultaneously. This suggests the driver is financial and the reach is global.

      For anyone considering a sale over the next couple of years, remember: He who panics first, panics best.

        1. It is odd you mentioned that. I used to get Realtor “newsletters” in Denver every week charting neighborhood appreciation and containing flipper and home seller success stories. Just last night I thought I hadn’t received one of them for the last two months. Interesting. It’s not like they are two busy selling houses since sales are down 1/3. Maybe they are working on drumming up business and dusting off the old resume.

      1. “SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – Housing prices in the San Diego region, and in many cities across the U.S., dropped in August — a possible sign that a shift to a buyer’s market is underway.”

        I can’t believe the MSM is openly reporting on price declines in San Diego in near real time. This is a significant departure from the last time, when MSM denial about falling prices was persistent.

        I can’t wait to read stories about angry Chinese investors who lost a bundle of money buying SoCal real estate.

        1. I can’t wait to read stories about angry Chinese investors who lost a bundle of money buying SoCal real estate.

          I propose that at 11:00 Pacific Time tomorrow, all HBB regulars go out on their back decks or balconies and stamp their little feet in solidarity with angry Chinese “investors” everywhere.

  4. Crane Watch update: More than 22000 residential units have flooded …
    Silicon Valley Business Journal-16 hours ago
    More than 22,000 new residential units have been proposed in the city of San Jose — the largest city in the housing-starved Bay Area — according to city …

    Shortage!

    1. Here’s Why More Scares Are Ahead for the Stock Market
      By Ben Levisohn
      Oct. 12, 2018 8:35 p.m. ET

      Dreams die hard. And we know now that the U.S. stock market had been living a dream. Investors had convinced themselves that a strong U.S. economy, juiced by tax cuts and other fiscal stimulus, could offset higher interest rates, the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, and slowing growth elsewhere around the world.

      That had allowed the S&P 500 to return 11% during the first nine months of 2018, even as the remainder of the world’s stocks fell more than 5%.

      All of that came crashing down this past week. The S&P 500 slumped 4.1% to 2767.13, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 1107.06 points or 4.2%, to 25,339.99, and the Nasdaq Composite sank 3.7% to 7496.89. It took a confluence of events to finally wake investors up.
      …

      1. He didn’t even mention housing slowing or falling the last two or three months nationally as we appear to be have peaked in the massive housing bubble. That is the real story. Housing effects everything, and its bust will destroy everything.

  6. “Magdalene Altidor lost her home to foreclosure during the subprime mortgage crisis, but this week she was first in line at a four-day event in Miami where borrowers with poor credit were offered no-down payment, low interest rate loans. . . . I left home, it was about 4am, she said with a laugh. I’m ready to purchase a home. . . . The event is one of several being held in cities across America this year, run by the non-profit, Boston-based brokerage, Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, or NACA.”

    More compassion than brains, or scam artists? Either way, this organization hurts everyone and needs to be shut down.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/thousands-line-up-for-zero-down-subprime-mortgages/ar-BBOio4h?ocid=spartanntp

    1. “Magdalene Altidor lost her home to foreclosure during the subprime mortgage crisis, but this week she was first in line at a four-day event in Miami where borrowers with poor credit were offered no-down payment, low interest rate loans. . . . I left home, it was about 4am, she said with a laugh. I’m ready to purchase a home. . . .

      More evidence, as if more were needed, that you can’t fix stupid.

      1. Not trying to fix it just trying to avoid subsidizing it. Idiocracy is getting less funny and more prophetic every year.

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