Art on the Rise! Christie’s Data Reinforces Recovery

From Pac Union's partner, Christie's:

We have been growing increasingly optimistic with the pace of our real estate recovery in the past 12 months, which has been supported by growing economic strength in the Bay Area. But we also look to indicators outside our industry for reinforcement – and are pleased that we’re finding those, too.

Case in point: the just-released 2012 summary of art-auction activity from Christie’s, the parent company of Pacific Union’s real estate partner, Christie’s International Real Estate. The venerated auction house posted sales of $6.27 billion last year and saw increases in both new clients and the number of bidders per auction. The highest auction price for the year at Christie’s was paid for Mark Rothko’s Orange, Red, Yellow which sold on 8 May in New York for $86,882,500, establishing a world record price for any contemporary work of art sold at auction.

For more, read the full story at Christies.com: http://bit.ly/ULTkCL

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Berkshire Hathaway Inks an Acquisition Deal that Reshapes the Real Estate Industry

From the Pac Union blog, November 8, 2012:

The real estate industry has received a major vote of confidence with the news that billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has acquired a majority interest in the Real Living and Prudential Real Estate brands.
Real Living and Prudential were aquired by HomeServices of America Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate, in a deal announced last week. The companies will be rebranded under a new name, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, beginning next year.  Read more . . . http://bit.ly/S0FFnA

A New Era for Oakland's Jack London Square

From the PU Blog, October 23, 2012:

With major changes under way at Oakland’s Jack London Square, some are calling the area "a beacon of light" for the city of 400,000.

New buildings have gone up at the square over the last few years as part of a 350 million dollar redevelopment project that began almost a decade ago. With major tenants moving in and the Jack London Square Market scheduled to open next year, city officials are predicting the site will attract even more visitors and residents to Oakland.  Read more . . .

Home Affordability at 50%

Courtesy of Interest.com, October 17, 2012:

A median-income household can only afford a median-priced home in 14 of the nation’s 25 largest metropolitan areas.  Atlanta, Detroit and Minneapolis-St. Paul are the most affordable cities, according to Interest.com’s first Home Affordability Study.  San Diego, New York and San Francisco are the least affordable.

With home prices down an average of 30% from their peak in 2006, and mortgage rates at record lows, there’s a lot of talk about how homes are more affordable now than they’ve been in decades.
In some places, that's true.  But in many cities, it’s not.  Read more . . .

Housing Recovery May Finally Be Here

Courtesy of CNNMoney:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)--It's been a long time coming, but economists surveyed by CNNMoney believe the nation's housing market has finally turned the corner.  Of the 14 economists who answered questions about home prices in the survey, nine believe that prices have already turned higher or will make that turn later this year.  Read more . . .

August Bay Area Home Sales Highest in 6 Years

From the Pacific Union blog--read the whole article at  http://bit.ly/OAZUXg

The Bay Area’s red-hot real estate market continues to set records, with August home sales at a six-year high.

The nine counties making up the Bay Area posted 8,579 home sales in August, up 1.4% from July and 14.2% from a year ago, for the best August since 2006.

Low mortgage rates, an improving economy, and increasing demand in mid- to move-up market segments helped spur August’s blistering pace.

Sales spiked 32.2 percent, year over year, in Napa County; 29.2 percent in Marin County; 29.1 percent in San Francisco; 22 percent in Alameda County; 19.3 percent in Sonoma County; 16.5 percent in Solano County; 9.3 percent in Santa Clara County; 5.6 percent in San Mateo County; and 4.6 percent in Contra Costa County.

The median sales price also rose across the Bay Area, from 2.3 percent in Marin County to 13.2 percent in San Francisco.

Is There Evidence Home Prices Have Hit Bottom?

From the WSJ
Nick Timiraos, September 4, 2012:

In each of the last three years, home prices have increased in the spring and summer, when more people are buying homes, before giving back all of those gains and then some in the fall and winter, when activity cools.  But it is beginning to look like that might not happen this year, absent a major stumble for the economy.

Home prices in July were up by 3.8% from one year ago, the largest year-over-year jump in six years. Moreover, prices have shot up by 9.6% from February, when they registered their lowest levels of the housing downturn, according to CoreLogic CLGX -0.35%data released Tuesday.

This adds evidence to the case that U.S. home prices may have hit bottom earlier this year. Even though prices will soften in the autumn, “we have a much better supply and demand dynamic” than in previous years, said Mark Fleming, chief economist at CoreLogic.

So when people say they believe home prices haven’t reached a bottom—that this year’s seasonal gains will be wiped away by January or February of next year—here’s the relevant question: Will home prices fall by 9.6% in the next six months?

Anything, of course, is possible. Home prices fell in the winter—what Mr. Fleming calls the “offseason”—in each of the last three years to record a new low. But they have not fallen by 9.6% in any six-month span since March 2009, which was when the U.S. economy was still in recession.

As we’ve written many times before, the strong rise in home prices this year owes as much to sharp declines in inventory as it does to demand-side improvement. Banks have been much slower to take back and list foreclosed properties, easing pressure on home prices but leaving a bloated “shadow inventory” of potential foreclosures.

These homes will weigh on markets for years, though there’s less evidence that they will be dumped on the market at once. While the shadow inventory may not lead to a big drop in prices that some have feared, it will probably keep a lid on future home-price gains.

Finally, lower mortgage rates have dramatically increased the purchasing power of today’s home buyers when compared to one year ago. Some real-estate executives are nervous that demand isn’t stronger given today’s low mortgage rates, and they’re worried about what will happen if rates rise.

The bottom line: Don’t be surprised if the all-time low in home prices is in the rearview mirror. But this doesn’t mean a full-on recovery is here, and there’s little evidence that the current pace of improvement can continue. For now, home prices appear to be bumping along a bottom.

Courtesy of the WSJ.