Thursday, October 18, 2007

Tale of Two Residential Real Estate Markets

"...it was a tale of two cities" wrote Charles Dickens about Paris prior to the revolution. Today in the United States, it is a tale of two very different residential real estate worlds and the wide disparity in supply and demand should not surprise any one. It is all about jobs (and job quality) and supply. At one end of the spectrum is a market with negative job growth and plenty of buildable land (pockets of Michigan). On the other end you have markets with growth in both jobs and wages and no meaningful increase in housing supply (Manhattan, San Francisco, Atherton, Ca). In between you have things like Fort Meyers (no jobs, but it is nice a couple months a year), and markets like Las Vegas and Phoenix. In these markets you have momentum on job growth but lots of space and little restriction on building.

Main stream media will continue to sell dramatic headlines to us. The reality is that any one who is awake can not be surprised at the numbers in their local markets. At the same time we have 400 properties auctioned in Orlando, we have record prices in premium neighborhoods in San Francisco and New York City.

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