- It should come as no surprise that with “robo-gate” drawing to a close, the removal of impediments to foreclosure could result in a bulge of foreclosure sales coming into the re-sale market.
- With respect to predicting future foreclosures, past statistics are not in themselves a predictor of the trend or direction of future foreclosures. Rather, if foreclosures temporarily run at a higher level, the only meaningful prediction is that temporarily there could be greater pricing pressure on existing and new home sales.
- Note in the preceding sentence use of the word, “could” instead of “will”. The Regional Manager of MetroStudy, the nation’s largest residential economic analysis consulting firm, recently spoke before FCBA membership and forecasted solid job growth for both Frederick County and the Washington metropolitan area. That job growth will prove beneficial in limiting the duration and intensity of any unusual pricing competition from foreclosure properties.
- The risk for anyone who gets lost in the weeds of foreclosure data is that they are likely to lose sight of the real factors most affecting housing value and affordability. Instead people find themselves misguided into believing that what matters most is achieving the “lowest initial acquisition cost” of a home. One key consideration that matters more than lowest initial acquisition cost is interest rates. For the home of average sales price, a 1% rise in interest rates affects the cost of ownership as if there had been a $12,000 sales price increase. Thus, since interest rates today, compared with those prevailing 60 days ago, have risen over ¾% to today‘s still low historically low level of 5+% (30-year, fixed rate), anyone waiting for the “lowest initial home cost” already has experienced an effective price increase of $9,000. And, in a related vein, according to MetroStudy home prices have firmed up and are regarded as being more likely to increase as the local and metropolitan area economies gain strength.
- A second significant pitfall for prospective homebuyers who pursue the “lowest initial purchase price” is that far more important is the “lowest total cost over the planned period of ownership“. These two very different standards of cost (lowest initial, versus lowest total over the intended period of ownership) can lead to decidedly different home purchase decisions. The former criterion ignores considerations of operating costs, maintenance costs, indoor comfort and indoor air quality, with the result often being that “lowest initial purchase cost” frequently equates to “highest cost of ownership“, not lowest.
- Consider that the average age of the U.S. housing stock is 34+ years. In Frederick County alone, the building code differences between a home built to today’s code and one built to codes existing in 1977 are akin to the differences that one would experience if buying a new state-of-the-art computer versus buying one that is 10 years old. No knowledgeable consumer would opt for the antiquated computer. And, comparing one of today’s third-party certified, “high performance homes” against the older re-sale, the performance and value difference is all the greater.
- My conclusion as a builder, self-serving though it may read, is that any person considering acquiring their next home risks making an unfortunate decision, if they regard foreclosure statistics as anything other than merely “interesting”. In making a home purchase decision, more important to any buyer than a low initial home purchase cost are both obtaining the best available mortgage rate and achieving the over-arching goal of attaining the “lowest total cost ownership over the planned period of ownership“.
From the foregoing you will see that foreclosure statistics simply are an “interesting distraction” that can lead homebuyers off course for achieving their most important home investment objectives.
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