1) Note to self.

Apparently Mark Zandi, an economist at Moody's Economy.com, has put out a report that includes Detroit, according to a CNN report: http://www.cnbc.com/id/19970949 I need to find that.

2) This blog post has 10 tips for first time MI home sellers. Most of these, including all quirks of being a seller in Michigan, I learned on Tuesday when my selling realtor and I sat down and went over numbers. I had her tell me what every dollar number she wrote down for her calculation of what I could ask meant and why is was the amount it was.

3) The big stuff.

According to this article, Existing Home Sales: Numbers Put Realtors On Defensive, the things that are being reported based on nation wide numbers are not realistic for use in local housing markets. So when I'm looking at all sorts of reports the question is What to believe?

Even those in the know are saying that while the U.S. national average is down 5% since 2005, that is very different from numbers in the big markets. It's clearly less than what's MI is down.

Also, in a very related field, the Homebuilder S&P Index is down 48% from the beginning of the year. That's HUGE.

The CNBC video report I watched says too much inventory, too much room for prices to drop, keeps pushing out the forecasts of when the bottom of the housing market will be reached. But again, that's nationally.

Conventional wisdom here in MI is that Michigan is always slow to follow the country out of a recession. And that has yet to be proven wrong. Even as the U.S. now is climbing out of the recession (or has in some areas), Michigan - especially Southern MI - is still well in its own private little depression. Does that also mean MI's housing market will take longer to recover also? I haven't found that answer yet.

This article, Countrywide CEO On Housing: Difficult Times Ahead, says:

Rising foreclosures only mean more homes forced onto an already glutted market. Inventories of new homes are at a 7-month supply now, and cancellation rates are well above historical norms.

In this article, Bernanke On Housing Problems: Finally Telling It Like It Is?, we start getting closer to the answer I personally have been looking for: Will Ann Arbor stay low to next year? Diana Olick says...

For months now, every analyst I talk to, every economist, every academic, says we’re in the early innings of this correction, which has been exacerbated by tightening credit and, more recently, rising interest rates on the 30-year fixed. Foreclosures are rising at a fast clip, and despite the fact that banks and regulators are aggressively trying to help homeowners in trouble, it’s kind of like the horse has already left the barn. What’s done is done, and it has to play out. Mr. Bernanke is finally telling it like it is.

In the CNBC video interview with people supposedly in the know, CNBC's Melissa Francis asks "When do you think the bottom is?"
Christopher Thornberg, Beacon Economics principal, says "At least two years out."
Timothy Speiss, Eisner LLP partner-in-charge, says "'09."

Okay..., but still, does that apply locally? And Ann Arbor and Livonia are not in the same local market, so I need to know how are they each going to react this coming year. Though my Mom pointed out the other day Livonia isn't really in the same local market as Detroit either, even though it is influenced by Detroit's market.

Hmm. So now it's looking like waiting will not cost me Ann Arbor. But on the flip side, it might make my situation in Livonia worse. *sigh* Decisions, decisions.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/19969870/site/14081545/

Labels: Home Buying