A new year, more mixed signals...

The local Oakland County, Michigan newspaper had a story today about foreclosures being down in the last three months of last year. Some local politicians opined that this is a trend and a sign of better times and the success of their programs, of course. Others thought that the statistics were an anomaly, which is more likely, since that encompassed a period during which banks had stopped processing foreclosures as they sorted out their processes for dealing with the paperwork.

My own statistics, about my little patch, support thre latter case. So far this year I'ms till seeing distressed home sales that are at or exceed 50% of all sales (see http://www.movetomilford.com/sold_homes.html). At the minimum distressed sales were 50% of sales in one township of the 9 that I now track and in the worst case represented 82% of all sales. Home prices also continue to fall, although at a much slower pace.

At a personal level, I'mactually quite busy with real estate deals right now. If all goes well I'll close three deals this month. The bad news is that, if you add all three up, the total of the sales will still be below $100,000. That's just the nature of the market here right now - mostly low-end, foreclosed and short-sale houses are selling. Houses above $200K are just sitting on the market, with some higher price bands now averaging over 2 years of days on market. There are few buyers out there looking for that move-up house right now.

The newspaper article mentioned above also trumpeted an increase of 7,000 jobs in Oakland county last year, which one can only hope is true, Michigan continues to have unemployment above 12% statewide and is in the top 5 nationwide. Our new Governor has made jobs his top priority and that's a good thing, if he can pull it off. Unemployment and the concerns about being laid off are the primary contributors to our real estate problems; so that needs to be addressed, before we'll pull out of this funk.