 | Where Houses Are Selling And Where They Are Not
By
Lauren Baier Kim
RealEstateJournal.com
Boom
Days Over in Southern California Last
month, the median home price in Southern California
($485,000) posted its
smallest year-over-year price gain, 6.4%, since July
2000, according to the Los Angeles Times. It's taking
longer
to sell a house, thanks to increasing mortgage rates,
fewer speculators, and
homeowners trying to sell before prices fall further,
the article says. The
areas that saw the smallest price appreciation in May
were the first ones to see
skyrocketing price tags during the boom, the Los Angeles Times says. For
instance, last month, San Diego County's median home
price went up a mere 0.4%
to $490,000 from $488,000, and Ventura County's median
price rose 3% to
$586,000, the article says. However, the paper says,
three counties reached
record-breaking median prices in May: Los Angeles (which
rose 10.9% from the
year before to $509,000), Riverside County (which had
a rise of 9.4% to
$417,000) and Orange County (which saw an increase of 7.6% to $635,000). Flipping
Houses in New Orleans House
flipping -- buying a home and reselling shortly thereafter
for a sizeable
profit -- was a popular activity of real-estate speculators
during the heyday of
the housing boom. Those days appear to be over in many
parts of the U.S., but in
hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, it is a growing occupation,
says Bloomberg.com. About 100,000
single-family homes were damaged by last year's storm
season, and now,
renovations have begun on 34,000 houses, the Web site says.One
local flipper,
who plans to make a living renovating and reselling
New Orleans-area homes, says
he can make a gain of 80% for three or four months
of work on each residence,
the article says. "If you're a regular person
who knows how to swing a hammer,
opportunity is jumping up and down in New Orleans,"
the Web site quotes one
local real-estate broker as saying. Small-time handymen
and speculators aren't
the only ones getting into the act -- Home Depot Inc.
has opened a few area
stores in response to demand for construction materials,
and home-builder KB
Home is building houses in the region. Buyers and Sellers Lock Horns in Orlando The
scale is tipping toward buyers in Orlando, but sellers
are refusing to lower asking prices, the Orlando Sentinel
says. The inventory
of existing homes for sale is five times greater than
it was last year and homes
are taking longer to sell, the article says. Convincing
homeowners that they
have to accept less than their neighbor did last year
is tough, the paper quotes
ones local real-estate agent as saying.Some
real-estate professionals are
putting in extra hours as buyers become choosier and
negotiations take longer to
complete, the article says. Local developers are wooing
buyers with "sweeteners"
like price discounts and closing costs, the Orlando Sentinel says. Foreclosures
in South Bend, Ind. South
Bend, Ind., home to Notre Dame University, saw
year-over-year home prices drop 10.2% to a median of
$81,800 in the first
quarter of this year, the Chicago Tribune says. Contributing
to
this decrease was an outbreak of home foreclosures
in the city, the paper says.
Area homeowners are being forced to sell as local industrial
jobs dwindle and
monthly payments on adjustable-rate mortgages become
harder to meet, the article
says. Investors
who renovate homes and resell them are profiting from
the high
number of foreclosures, the article says. Unlike residential
areas closer to
Chicago, South Bend isn't a popular second-home locale,
in part because of its
two-hour drive to downtown Chicago, the paper says. Anything
But Cool in Austin Home
sales and prices may be cooling as a whole in the
U.S., but not in Austin, the Austin American-Statesman
says. There,
the year-over-year median home price increased 8% in
May to $174,000 the article
says, and houses tend to sell in less than two months.
Boosting sales are a
strong local economy and buyers who see the Austin
market as a relative bargain,
the paper says. "Somebody
living in California in a 1,400-square-foot home could
sell it anywhere from $700,000 to $1.2 million, take
the profit and buy a
mansion in Austin," the article quotes the chairman
of the Austin
Board of Realtors as saying. Outlying areas such as
Round Rock and Oak Hill are
seeing an increase in buyer interest as home prices
within the city rise, the
paper says. Join
a reader discussion about the residential real-estate market.
Send
links to articles about residential-real-estate markets to Lauren Kim at lauren.kim@wsj.com. Email
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