Many people are asking these days "How is the housing market doing, I hear its really bad out there right now!" My answer been the same for sometime, "If it gets any worse I'll have to hire more help to keep up."
This data below I received from the Board of Realtor's this morning:
Iowa/Black Hawk County Foreclosure Data Bob Reisinger - 4/3/2009 7:58:19 AM
While preparing for a talk next week, I came across some statistics on foreclosure rates and numbers in Iowa. This might be of interest to your buyers and seller in our market:
Background: In 2008 IOWA had 5400 foreclosure filings. It was a 31% increase over 2007 and 136% increase from 2006.
Nationally IOWA ranked 37th in TOTAL Foreclosures and IOWA's foreclosure RATE was ranked 40th nationally. National RATE was 1.84% of Housing units filed. In IOWA, 0.41% of the housing units filed. Overall IOWA accounted for less than 1% of the 2,330,483 filings nationally.
Five (5) Iowa counties accounted for 67% of the 5400 filings.
Polk County (Des Moines) - 1735 filings - .96% rate
Linn (Cedar Rapids) - 627 filings - .69% rate
Scott (Davenport) - 519 filings - .74% rate
Pottawattamie (Council Bluffs) - 425 filings - 1.09% rate
Woodbury (Sioux City) - 297 filings - .71% rate
BLACKHAWK County had a rate of .07% and ranked 71st of the 99 counties in the state.
The above information is from the IOWA Independent - A center for Independent Media
I realize that with all the news we see everyday about how bad it is in our home building industry out there that I am thankful that our market has held up this well. We may not be getting all that we would like to see for our homes and products but we are a far cry from the financial detestation seen in other parts of the country. As long as you are staying in the area the spread to move up or down is about the same spread as it was in the good times.
Just today heard there were 10 lot sales this week in one subdivision and many more people starting to search. Our website activity is at all time highs. Low interest rates, 4-3/8 % for 30 years!!! WOW its the lowest that it has been in my 35 years in the building business and real estate business.
Prices for materials are really low, less than 1/2 of the highest price and many sub prices are steady and some are dropping. It's a fantastic time to build or buy, a once in a life time opportunity.
Judging by the huge up swing in the stock market and the rise in the homebuilders stocks the low prices will not last for long. You snooze you lose!!!
Craig the Builder
