Housing prices have started to climb in many sectors of the country. This appears mostly to be a supply-side phenomena. The housing inventory is shrinking. If Ben Bernanke's latest QE event results in money entering the system, prices are likely to soar.
From the supply-side, Los Angeles, California probably has the tightest inventory supply in the country.
Last month 7,917 homes were sold in Los Angeles County . In other words Los Angeles County has less than 2 months of inventory given the current sales rate. And prices are reflecting the tight market. Prices are up 6.3% over the last 12 months.:
Median home price
August 2011: $315,000
August 2012: $335,000
But Los Angeles is not the only area with dwindling supply. The national housing inventory supply is down to 6.1 months. As of September 24 2012 there were about 798,326 single family and condo homes listed for sale in the 54 metro areas tracked by Department of Numbers.1 The median asking price of these homes was estimated to be $233,906.2 Since this time last year, the inventory of homes for sale has decreased by 22.4% and the median price has increased by 2.2%.
If you are in the market for a house, now is the time to buy. Lock in the extremely low mortgage rates long-term.
What did you think of Schiff's comments that QEi (for infinity) was intended to tempt homeowners to refi with ARMs? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptMrAgWqRfg
ReplyDeleteWe will know that a new housing bubble is upon us when we stat hearing the financial press claiming that "Home prices are just getting back to trend, this is not a bubble" or "Houses were over sold, so we're just getting back to 'real' value"
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