Say Goodbye to the McMansion

Times have changed, and the square footage of new American homes is dropping. Super-sized homes are out, and efficiency and versatility are in. MarketWatch's Amy Hoak reports on the latest building trends.

Existing home sales take off

From the September existing home sales report:

• Existing home sales jumped 9.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.57 million units from 5.09 million in August. That was the highest since July 2007.
• Single-family home sales gained 9.4%, while condo and cooperative sales rose 9.7%. By region, sales climbed across the board. They were up 4.4% in the Northeast, 9% in the South, 9.6% in the Midwest, and 13% in the West.
• The raw number of homes for sale dropped 7.5% to 3.63 million units from 3.924 million in August. Supply was down 15% from a year earlier. The months supply at current sales pace indicator of inventory dropped to 7.8 from 9.3. Single family inventory dropped to 7.6 from 9, while condo inventory fell to 11 from 12.1.
• The median price of an existing home fell 1.4% to $174,900 from $177,300 in August, down 8.5% from $191,400 a year ago.

Of course, there are logical reasons for the increase. Soon the tax credit will expire, and that combined with stabilization in the broader economy and cheap home prices drove sales to the highest level since 2007. The overall supply of used homes for sale is also steadily declining, an encouraging trend considering that new home inventory has already dropped steadily. Of course, there is some concern about the lag effect. Clearly, some buyers purchased a home this summer because of the tax credit. Unless that credit is extended or expanded, we’ll see a slight reversal in the coming couple of months. I don’t think it derails the overall recovery, but it will be noticeable.

Housing highlights

The latest figures on home construction just came out. Here’s a rundown:

• Total housing starts came in at 582,000 in June, up 3.6% from an upwardly revised 562,000 in May. Permitting activity also climbed — 8.7% to 563,000 from 518,000 a month earlier. Starts haven’t been higher than this since November..

• By property type, single family construction activity rose 14.4%, while multifamily construction dropped 25.8%. Single family permits rose 5.9%, while multifamily permits rose 18.8%. The increase in single family building was the biggest since December 2004.

• Regionally, starts rose 28.6% in the Northeast and 33.3% in the Midwest. Starts fell 1.4% in the South and 14.8% in the West. Permitting activity was up in all four regions, with the South leading the way at 13.9% and the West showing the weakest growth at 1.9%.

For some time, the housing market has been showing signs of stabilization. Not a robust recovery, but an end to the “cliff diving” we saw in 2007 and 2008. This phase will be marked by ongoing price declines in many locales, albeit more gradual ones. We will also see a gradual stabilization in sales rates … a gradual decline in the level of inventory for sale … and a gradual bottoming out of construction activity. Today’s starts and permitting figures fit with this projection, as did yesterday’s NAHB report on builder optimism.

Again, though, the word to emphasize is “gradual.” The new home industry has done a good job of reducing supply — with inventory for sale now in line with the long-term average. But the existing home market is still vastly oversupplied, and we continue to be inundated with an influx of distressed and foreclosed properties. That means anyone hoping for a robust “V”-shaped recovery is likely to be disappointed.

Home sales gaining slightly

The existing home sales report for May just came out. Here’s what the figures showed:

• Existing home sales gained 2.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.77 million units from 4.66 million in April. That was slightly below forecasts for a reading of 4.82 million and down 3.6% from 4.95 million a year earlier.

• Single-family sales climbed 1.9%, while condo and cooperative sales rose 6.1%. Regionally, sales were mixed. They rose 3.9% in the Northeast and 9% in the Midwest. But transaction volume was unchanged in the South and down 0.9% in the West.

• The raw number of homes for sale fell 3.5% to 3.798 million units from 3.937 million in April. That was also down 15.3% from a year earlier. The months supply at current sales pace indicator of inventory dropped to 9.6 from 10.1, with single family inventory falling to 9 from 9.5 and condo inventory slipping to 15 from 15.4.

• The median price of an existing home rose 3.8% to $173,000 from $166,600 in April. That was down 16.8% from $207,900 in the year-ago period.

We saw another month of modest improvement in the housing sector in May. Existing home sales rose, led by the Midwest region. Sales were particularly strong in the condo sector, while the supply of homes on the market dipped. The biggest fly in the ointment continues to be pricing. It remains weak, with yet another double-digit decline from year-earlier levels showing up in the data.

Stepping back for a moment and looking at the big picture, it’s clear that the housing sector is no longer in freefall. But neither is it rebounding strongly. We’re seeing modest declines in inventory, modest improvement in sales, and some tentative signs of stabilization in pricing. But that’s it. And that should come as no surprise. We just experienced the longest, largest housing bubble in U.S. history. As a result, the recovery process will be a long, drawn-out affair.

Another thing to keep an eye on: Mortgage rates. They didn’t begin to rise significantly until late May. Since the existing home sales figures are based on contract closings, rather than contract signings, the impact of higher rates wasn’t captured in this report. We’ll likely see housing demand trail off as we head deeper into the summer unless financing costs ease back.

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones) -- Existing-home sales improved again in May, but falling prices and bloated supply promise to make a housing sector recovery slow.

From Mark Perry: That's one way to look at it. Here are some alternative views:

1. The April to May increases in median home prices (3.84%) and mean home prices (3.26%) were the largest monthly price increases in more than a year (data here).

2. The monthly May increase in both median home prices (3.84%) and homes sold (2.36%) was only the second time in at least a year that both prices and unit sales increased in the same month.

3. The back-to-back increase in home sales in both April and May is the first time in at least a year of two consecutive monthly increases.

4. The most recent two-month increase in sales of 4.84% is the largest since April 2004 (source).

5. The 9.6 months supply of inventory in May is below last year's May level of 10.9 months by more than five weeks, and is at the second-lowest level in the last year.

According to Brian Wesbury and Bob Stein:
The data today are consistent with our outlook that the economy is recovering from a panic.

Home sales, building activity, and the rate of decline in home prices all seem to be bottoming or have already formed a bottom. In fact, the level of existing home sales in May was the highest since October 2008.

The new home sales figures for May were also released this morning. Here’s a recap …

• New home sales dipped 0.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 342,000 from 344,000 in April. The numbers are a disappointment, considering economists were expecting sales of 360,000. Results for the past few months were also downwardly revised by 32,000 units.

• Regionally, sales jumped 28.6% in the Northeast and 18.6% in the Midwest. They inched up 1.3% in the west, but fell 8.5% in the South, the nation’s largest new home market (184,000 units sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate vs. 80,000 in the West … 51,000 in the Midwest … and 27,000 in the Northeast).

• The raw number of homes for sale continued to decline, falling to 292,000 from 299,000 in April. That’s the lowest reading going back to March 2001. The months supply at current sales pace indicator of inventory dipped to 10.2 from 10.4.

• The median price of a new home rose 4.2% last month to $221,600 from $212,600 in April. On a year-over-year basis, prices were down 3.4%, the best YOY showing since December.

Digging into the May new home sales figures, you see that sales rose in three out of four regions of the country. But they declined sharply in the South, the country’s biggest new home market, so overall sales were a disappointment. On the other hand, for-sale inventory continues to decline — a definite plus. And the year-over-year rate of home price depreciation eased markedly.

Overall, the story remains the same: The housing market is gradually stabilizing, but showing no sign whatsoever of a vigorous rebound. The biggest issues going forward remain unemployment and interest rates. The supply of new homes for sale is back in line with the long-term historical average. But if potential buyers are losing their jobs, and financing costs are going up, builders are going to have a tough time moving product.

Housing Market Update

This is a HUGE subject and I probably can't do it justice in one blog entry. But here goes.

Sales of new one-family houses in April 2009 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 352,000, according to estimates released jointly last week by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 0.3 percent (±14.5%)* above the revised March rate of 351,000, but is 34.0 percent (±11.0%) below the April 2008 estimate of 533,000.

The median sales price of new houses sold in April 2009 was $209,700; the average sales price was $254,000. The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of April was 297,000. This represents a supply of 10.1 months at the current sales rate.

Below are some viewpoints from some housing pundits regarding this latest report:

• The new home sales numbers seem to confirm what the single-family housing starts and permits numbers imply — that the market for new single-family homes is flattening — indeed, that it may have hit bottom in January — and that the recovery will be a slow one. Despite improving numbers, we are not ready to say that the market has hit bottom. These numbers are estimates with large standard deviations. Because the margin of errors is big, the footnote in the press release warns, “It takes four months to establish a trend for new homes sold.” We still project that this market will start expanding in the second half of this year. –Patrick Newport, IHS Global Insight
  
  
• As opposed to the resale volumes, which increased by 2.9% month-to-month in April, new home sales remain sluggish. Plunging prices, record-low mortgage rates and an $8000 tax credit for first time buyers did not help much to push up hew housing demand. We believe, new home sales is probably a better reflection of the underlying demand than the existing home sales which have been highly boosted by the increasing foreclosure numbers recently. Nevertheless, new home inventories kept declining in April which sent the months’ supply in new homes to 2.3 month below a record of 12.4 months reached in January. In addition, the home prices kept falling and were 14.9% below last April’s levels. Even though we see builders are becoming more optimistic about the future of the housing industry and there is some stabilization in housing demand, surging foreclosures, rising mortgage rates and high unemployment rates will weigh heavily on new home sales and will prevent a sharp rebound in the housing market in the near future. –Yelena Shulyatyeva, BNP Paribas
  
  
• New homes are now sitting on the market for a median 10.9 months before selling, and completed homes still comprise an extraordinarily high share of total homes for sale. While sales have stabilized within a fairly narrow range over recent months, there is little to suggest that the sales rate will post a meaningful and sustained increase any time soon. Despite the Fed’s efforts, mortgage rates are heading higher, while the ongoing erosion in the labor market and tougher mortgage lending standards will continue to act as drags on sales. It is true that the first-time buyer tax credit is stimulating sales, but this will not be sufficient to sustain a meaningful increase in new home sales. –Richard F. Moody, Forward Capital
  
  
• Even with some normalization of unsold inventory of newly constructed homes, it’s unlikely that the real estate market can support any significant pick-up in homebuilding activity in the foreseeable future. That’s because foreclosure activity is still increasing and these properties are flooding the market. –David Greenlaw, Morgan Stanley
  
  
• The report was a bit of a mixed bag, as the weaker than expected gains in new home sales will likely be offset by the improvement in the inventory data. –Millan L. B. Mulraine, TD Securities
  
  
• This is a bit disappointing, given the hefty increase in homebuilder sentiment in the past couple of months. The relatively late Easter might have restrained activity, we suppose, but we cannot be sure. Either way, we still think the combination of very low mortgage rates and falling inventory will entice people back into the market in greater numbers over the next few months. –Ian Shepherdson, High Frequency Economics
  
  
• Looking ahead, reports from homebuilders indicate that activity picked up in April and then a bit further in May, led by first-time homebuyers attracted by steep price declines at the bottom end of the market. The same appears to be true of existing homes, where first-timers are being tempted by deeply discounted properties coming out of foreclosure. Therefore, while sales rates may well have bottomed, it seems clear that gains in activity will remain concentrated in lower priced homes. However, supply will remain enormous, particularly with increased competition coming from distressed sales of existing homes. This suggests that prices will continue to edge lower at the bottom end of the market even as demand for these homes picks up a bit –Joshua Shapiro, MFR Inc.
  
  
• Although new single-family sales were a little below expectations in April, we judge the data to be consistent with a bottoming out in new housing construction activity as also suggested by single-family housing starts and permits and the NAHB’s housing market index. Perhaps the most constructive indicator is the decline in the number of homes for sale in April, both in absolute terms and in relation to sales (though the months’ supply remains elevated). The latest mortgage delinquency data for the first quarter remind us that there are still very significant problems in the housing market. –RDQ Economics

Here are a few charts that depict the current housing situation:
Lower prices and historically low borrowing costs have increased affordability. The average 30-year mortgage rate was 4.81% in April, down from 5.00% in March and 5.92% in April 2008, Freddie Mac data show.

The housing industry hopes demand is stirred by the $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers included in the Obama administration's economic stimulus package. However, tighter mortgage lending standards and rising unemployment are working against sellers. The unemployment rate in April climbed to 8.9% from 8.5% during March.

Regionally last month, new-home sales were flat in the Midwest and the Northeast. Sales fell 3.8% in the West and climbed 1.9% in the South.The market is bedeviled, however, by foreclosures. Buyers are gobbling distressed property, priced cheaply, and passing up on new homes. This restrains construction, hurting builders as well as the kinds of commerce that feed off new subdivisions and might otherwise emerge -- in the form of shopping malls, for instance.

Last Wednesday, the National Association of Realtors reported existing-home sales increased 2.9% to a 4.68 million annual rate. About 45% of the 4.68 million were foreclosures and short sales. The median home price dropped 15.4% to $170,200 from $201,300 in April 2008.

About half of the new foreclosures were in four states: California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada, according to the report. Measuring both old and new defaults, 11 percent of all mortgages in Florida were in foreclosure at the end of the first quarter, the highest in the U.S. In Nevada, it was 7.8 percent, in Arizona, it was 5.6 percent, and in California, it was 5.2 percent. New Jersey’s foreclosure inventory was 4.3 percent, New York was 3 percent, and Massachusetts was 2.8 percent.

It is important to note (once again) that the monthly data is statistical noise at 0.3% with a ±14.5% margin of error; the annual fall of 34% is statistically significant.

The usual headlines got it wrong:

• Bloomberg: New-Home Sales in U.S. Climbed 0.3%

• Marketwatch: Home sales up a paltry 0.3%

• Reuters: US new home sales rose 0.3 percent in April

• Associated Press: April new home sales inch upward

• WSJ: New-Home Sales Rise as Prices Tumble

The bottom line... we cannot accurately state (in a statistically significant manner) that home sales went up in April 2009. But, we do know confidently that sales fell (between 23% and 45%) year over year.

But the real question is...have we reached bottom yet in the housing market???

Maybe.

Housing report carries a mixed message

Today's housing reports indicates that building permits in April 2009 decreased 3.3% from March and declined 50.2% from April 2008, to 494,000. Housing starts in March 2009 decreased 12.8% from the prior month and declined 54.2% from the prior year, to 458,000.

On the surface this appears to be more bad news. But there is a silver lining. Behind the headlines (interestingly, the same was the case with retail sales), the numbers didn’t look as terrible.

First, with record inventory why are people rooting for additional supply? Second, the large, and unexpected, decline in housing starts is driven solely by a huge drop in multi-family housing starts, which dropped 46.1% to only 90,000 at an annual rate. This looks like a payback for a large increase in February when multi-family starts rose 65.6%. In addition, single family starts rose 2.8% while permits rose 3.6%. This trend, if sustained in coming months, would suggest that single family housing starts are in the process of bottoming and we may be starting the long, slow recovery. As I have said before, regional variations do exist so be wary of painting with too broad a brush stroke.

Mortgage rates fall again to 4.80%

According to data released today by Freddie Mac, 30-year mortgage rates fell this week to 4.80%, from 4.82% last week and 4.87% the previous week. Except for the 4.78% average during the first week of April, the 4.80% rate marks the lowest 30-year mortgage rate in history (see chart above), and is a full 4 percentage points below the 8.80% average rate since 1964. Along with falling home prices, the record-low mortgage rates are continuing to elevate housing affordability to record highs, which will help the real estate market in its recovery process this year.

Have we hit a bottom in housing?

There have been some glimmers of light in the darkening economic picture, including retail sales for January and February and sales of both new and existing homes in February. It’s clear that ongoing market adjustments in key sectors are essential to eventual economic recovery and expansion.

The policy blitz coming from the Administration, Congress, the Federal Reserve and foreign policymakers certainly are helping to move the train down the track toward the recovery tunnel — and the light at the other end should be in view soon.

This economic recovery pattern cannot materialize without near-term stabilization of the housing sector, and let's hope recent policy initiatives to help housing turn that corner.

Housing pundits are forecasting a bottoming for home sales in the first quarter of this year, a bottom for total and single-family housing starts in the second quarter, and a bottom for the residential fixed investment component of GDP in the final quarter of 2009.

National average house prices should stabilize within a few quarters, and the majority of the decline may now be behind us.

Yesterday, Diane Swonk released her housing market forecast on a particularly encouraging note. Click here for more.

Housing Affordability at Record High

OK, I am on vacation but blogging counts as relaxation, right?

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) recently released its latest Housing Affordability Index (HAI), showing that housing affordability reached an all-time, historic record high of 166.8 in January (see chart above). A HAI of 166.8 would mean that the typical household earning the median family income of $59,821 in January would have 166.8% of the qualifying income to purchase a median-priced existing single-family house ($169,900) with a 20% down payment, which would be the highest level of housing affordability since the NAR started reporting housing affordability in 1971 (see chart below).

Since mid-2006, the HAI has risen by more than 67 points, from 99.6 in July 2006 to 168.8. Stated differently, the annual qualifying income required to purchase a median-price house (with a 20% down payment) is only $35,856, with monthly payments based on a 5.21%, 30-year fixed-rate mortgage ($747.19 per month for principal and interest). Given the median family income of about $59,821, the typical family would have 166.8% of the income required to qualify for the mortgage to purchase the $169,900 home.

The historic surge in housing affordability to a new record-high will play an important role in the real estate market's recovery. Interestingly, the record-high level of housing affordability over the last several months has gone almost unreported by the media. The media seems trigger happy in its coverage of every possible bit of bad news about the real estate market and economy in general, but never covers some of the obvious, "mustard seed" signs of economic recovery, like record high housing affordability.

Supply and demand do work

The current political stampede to stop mortgage foreclosures proceeds as if foreclosures are just something that strikes people like a bolt of lightning from the blue-- and as if the people facing foreclosures are the only people that matter.

What if the foreclosures are not stopped? Will millions of homes just sit empty? Or will new people move into those homes, now selling for lower prices-- prices perhaps more within the means of the new occupants?

The same politicians who have been talking about a need for "affordable housing" for years are now suddenly alarmed that home prices are falling. How can housing become more affordable unless prices fall?

The political meaning of "affordable housing" is housing that is made more affordable by politicians intervening to create government subsidies, rent control or other gimmicks for which politicians can take credit. Affordable housing produced by market forces provides no benefit to politicians and has no attraction for them.

In the wake of the housing debacle in California, more people are buying less expensive homes, making bigger down payments, and staying away from "creative" and risky financing (see chart above). It is amazing how fast people learn when they are not insulated from the consequences of their decisions.

~Thomas Sowell's latest column "Subsidizing Bad Decisions"

Some good news on the housing front

Foreclosure filings dropped 9.6% from December, RealtyTrac reports, largely due to the combined mitigation efforts of banks and the government - but remain 18% higher than a year ago. In January, one in every 466 houses was the subject of a foreclosure filing. Yesterday, Foreclosures.com said completed foreclosures plunged by more than 25% in January from December, to 72,694 from 97,841. Preforeclosure filings - an indicator of future completed foreclosures - also fell 12%. "Efforts last year by government and industry to lay the groundwork for housing recovery finally are yielding the hoped-for slowdown in the foreclosure hemorrhage," Foreclosure.com president Alexis McGee said.

Who do you believe?

From the WSJ: The good news is your home may be worth more than the rock-bottom price that your neighbors' houses fetched. The bad news: No one but you might think so.

The one point of widespread agreement in the real-estate industry is that there is no single accurate index of home prices. They are all over the map, cover different sets of homes and may exclude parts of the country or be unduly influenced by the mix of homes sold in a given month.

No matter which index is correct, until a large inventory reduction takes place, housing prices will not stabilize. Click here for the Money Morning housing forecast for 2009.

Economy & Housing Roundup

From the National Association of Home Builders: A look at the latest carnage on Wall Street; long-term housing forecast is looking up. A must read! Click here.

The Link Between Foreclosures and House Prices

Rising foreclosures will not cause U.S. home values to plunge, despite widespread concerns to the contrary. That's the conclusion of a new and first-of-its-kind study, The Foreclosure-House Price Nexus: Lessons from the 2007-2008 Housing Turmoil (NBER Working Paper No. 14294) by Charles Calomiris, Stanley Longhofer, and William Miles. Although the authors recognize that other factors not captured by their analysis could weigh on home prices, the effects of foreclosure shocks - which promise to grow over the next several months, and which have been a source of worry to homeowners and economists - seem to be smaller than many have feared. Even under their most extreme scenario, in which foreclosure rates would substantially exceed current forecasts, the resulting average drop in home prices between the national peak in the second quarter of 2007 and the fourth quarter of 2009 would be less than 6 percent.

The authors emphasize that house-price declines vary across states and argue that headlines pointing to extreme circumstances in a few states can be misleading about the United States as a whole. Despite increased foreclosure rates throughout the country, only 12 states are projected to see foreclosure-induced price declines of 6 percent or more through 2009, led by Nevada, Florida, California, and Arizona. "This suggests that home prices are quite sticky, and that fears of a major fall in house prices, with all of its attendant negative macroeconomic consequences, typically are not warranted even in extreme foreclosure circumstances," they write.

Part of the reason that foreclosure shocks have small effects on house prices is that these shocks tend to occur late in the housing cycle, after housing starts have declined and the supply of existing homes on the market has fallen sharply. These effects largely offset the price consequences of a supply surge caused by foreclosures.

Another contributing factor to the observed stability of house prices is the measure of price change chosen by the authors. The authors argue that it is appropriate to focus on a house price measure related to the prime conforming segment of the mortgage market (which accounts for more than three quarters of American homes). The authors seek to measure foreclosure effects on the values of homes sold by typical sellers, not the declines in prices of homes undergoing foreclosure-induced distress sales. They argue, therefore, that the house price index from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) -- which does not include subprime home sales -- is the most reliable and useful dataset for their purposes.

Using quarterly data for each state going back to 1981, the authors model the dynamic linkages among five variables: foreclosures, home prices, employment, permits issued for single-family homes, and existing home sales. Using state-level data makes it possible to measure linkages using the frequent and significant ups and downs that occur in state and regional housing markets. In contrast to the aggregate national market, individual states have seen larger and more volatile swings in foreclosures and house prices since the 1980s. By concentrating on the states, the authors also can take into account the effects of widely varying employment growth during that period -- an effect that continues to define important regional differences, in particular between housing trends in the Rust Belt and the West.

One limitation of the authors' model is that it assumes that rising foreclosure rates have the same incremental effect on house prices regardless of whether the foreclosure rate is high or low. In fact, the incremental effect of increases in foreclosures on prices is much larger when foreclosure rates are high than when they are low. The authors adjust their model to account for this by increasing their assumed foreclosure forecasts for 2008-9 by 53 percent. To test the sensitivity of their results to even greater foreclosure risks, they also build an "extreme-shock" scenario and boost the foreclosure projections by 75 percent. These two scenarios create modest downdrafts in home prices that average 4.7 and 5.5 percent, respectively, through 2009.

"We do not have a crystal ball," the authors conclude. "Our estimates are based on relationships among house prices, foreclosures, and other variables observed in the past. It is conceivable that unusually tight consumer credit conditions, or other factors, could weigh on the housing market and produce more price decline than we estimate." But "based on the past experience of the housing cycle, even when one proverbially bends over backwards to inflate estimated foreclosures and take account of…" their effects on house prices, there is no reasonable basis "…for believing (as many commentators do)that the housing wealth of consumers has fallen or will fall by much more than 5 percent," they write.

Home prices increased in 30 of the 50 states this past year

From Mark Perry: The map below is from the latest housing report from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, showing the "Four-Quarter Price Change by State" from 2007:Q2 to 2008:Q2.

Notice that the biggest price decreases have taken place in 4 states: CA (-15.8%), NV (-14.1%), FL (-12.4%) and AZ (-9.2%), see previous CD post (data through 2008:Q1 for that post).

Further, house prices have increased over the last year in 30 states, including increases of above 4% for two states (OK and WY), and increases at or above 3% for 12 states (OK, WY, TX, OK, SD, ND, MS, AL, NC, SC, KY, WV). Finally, more than half of the states (27) have experienced home price increases of 1% or greater, and 30/50 states have experienced price increases over the most recent year (2007:Q2 to 2008:Q2).

Location, Location, Location

This past week I spent time at the Researchers Conference at the SNA (Southern Nursery Association) Trade Show in Atlanta. I talked with a number of growers and retailers and found the conversations similar to those at previously attended conferences -- some folks have really struggled this year, some have held even, and others have done "quite well" having both increased their prices and experienced increased sales.

It certainly causes one to reflect on the reasons why this diversity in business experiences have occurred this year. There are several factors, as we have discussed previously within these blog pages. Some are pertinent to the individual firms themselves (e.g. a well-grounded differentiation strategy for instance) and other factors are purely external to the firms strategy (e.g. the effects of a down economy).

I pondered another possible external factor that we have often referred to a "location, location, location" as I read this week's BusinessWeek. It has an interesting slide show and article about the "Real Estate Boom and Bust in the Same Metro Areas" (article here) which looks at the best and worst-performing zip codes in the 20 largest metro areas. EconomicPicData blog summarizes the BusinessWeek data in the chart below.

For example, in Dallas' Preston Hollow area (75220 zip code) there has been a +33% increase in asking price over the last year, with a median list price of $310,564 and average marketing time of 125 days. In the Fort Worth area (76110 zip code) of the Dallas metro area, asking price has decreased by -19%, with a median list price of $104,538 and average 118 days on the market.

The bottom line -- There is no "national real estate market," it's thousands and thousands of local real estate markets. As these data show, there's not even a single "local real estate market" by metro area, it all comes down to zip code areas. Since there are about 43,000 zip codes in the U.S., that 's probably an approximation of the minimum number of local real estate markets, and many local markets probably vary within a zip code. So where you live and operate your business certainly affects business performance.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?