We have all heard plenty about the dismal numbers on national home
prices and rising foreclosures. But, to be honest--and this may come as
news to some--there actually are some housing markets in America where
home prices are still rising. For those of you who don't believe
me, we have real numbers to prove it.
A new feature we launched in Mortgage Banking earlier this year
called "Home-Price Spotlight" shows exactly where some of
these steady-Eddie housing markets are located. Our numbers come
courtesy of First American CoreLogic, Santa Ana, California. The
one-year appreciation rates posted for the top-10 markets in the most
recent Home-Price Spotlight might really surprise you. What's also
surprising is the very modest median home prices in these locales. On
top of that, there is not a single one of these markets located anywhere
west of Oklahoma.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
As to the actual markets in our top-10 best-performing counties
ranked by one-year price change, six of them are located in the state of
New York. None are in high-priced housing markets--in fact, the highest
median home price among the 10 was $187,500 for Rensselaer County, New
York. The outright winner in terms of the highest rate of appreciation
was Fulton County, New York, which posted an annual rate of appreciation
of 14.85 percent.
Seven of the top-10 best-performing counties posted double-digit
house-price growth for data current through March 2008. The other states
represented on the list, in addition to New York, are North Carolina,
Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Granted, these are not powerhouse
housing markets, but they are thriving markets nonetheless.
On the other hand, the list of 10 worst-performing counties by
one-year price change is the part of the housing market story we have
become all too familiar with. Nine out of 10 of these markets are in
California--one is in Florida. Topping the list of worst-performing
markets is Stanislaus County, California. That hard-hit county saw an
annual price decline of 24.35 percent, according to the LoanPerformance
HPI. All 10 counties on this list showed price declines of more than 20
percent. So, if you are looking for housing market opportunities, much
of California is not where you'll find it. Even the list of 10
worst-performing counties measured by a three-month change in prices
showed eight of 10 were in California.
But we want to go back to the message we started out with--that of
the glass half-full. There are lots of origination opportunities even in
today's battered and bad-mouthed mortgage market, but you just have
to look harder to find them. The message we took away from all the
articles in this issue is: Take the best market data and dig into
them--and work the specialty lending niches, too, but maybe start
someplace other than California.
Janet Reilley Hewitt Editor in Chief
COPYRIGHT 2008 Mortgage Bankers Association of
America Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
Copyright 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights
reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.
NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.