TWIN CITIES AREA   JAN '11 JAN '10 Percent Change (compared to one year prior) New listings 5,569 6,598 - 16% Active listings 23,880 20,899 + 14% Months supply 7.60 5.50 + 38% Pending sales 2,838 2,736 + 4% Median sales price $140,000 $157,000 - 11% Cumulative days on the market 146 133 + 10% Average showings* 15 16 - 6% In the last 30 days 55% of properties have had a price adjustment. For every sale, there are 8 properties that remain on the market.

*Edina Realty Appointment Center statistics Based on information from the Minneapolis Area Association of REALTORS, Inc. Data collected from the REGIONAL MULTIPLE LISTING SERVICE OF Minnesota, INC., for properties in the 13-county region exclusively.

This email was sent by: Edina Realty 6800 France Ave. S, Suite 600, Edina, MN 55435

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Washington, October 14, 2010

Nearly eight out of 10 respondents believe buying a Home is a good financial decision, despite ongoing challenges with the economy and housing market. That’s according to the 2010 National Housing Pulse Survey, an annual report released today by the National Association of Realtors®.

The survey, which measures how affordable housing issues affect consumers, also found job security concerns to be the highest in eight years of sampling, with 70 percent of Americans saying that job layoffs and unemployment are a big problem in their area; eight in 10 cite these issues as a barrier to homeownership.

“The real issue facing the nation’s economy right now is that many Americans can’t find meaningful work to support their families,” said NAR President Vicki Cox Golder, owner of Vicki L. Cox & Associates in Tucson, Ariz. “While a job recovery is what’s needed right now to get the economy and housing market back on the right track, owning a Home continues to be part of the American Dream and one of the best long-term investments in your future.”

Despite economic uncertainty, 68 percent of those surveyed still believe now is a good time to buy a Home; while that number is down from last year (75 percent), it’s up from 2008 (66 percent) and 2007 (59 percent). Lower Home prices and record-low mortgage interest rates may be attracting buyers to the housing market – more than one-fourth of renters said they are thinking more about buying a Home than they were a year ago. Sixty-three percent of renter respondents said that owning a Home is a priority in their future, and nearly 40 percent said it was one of their highest priorities.

Lower Home prices have improved affordability. In fact, the percentage of renters who are worried that the cost of housing is getting so unaffordable that they will never be able to buy a Home has decreased steadily since 2007, from 63 to 57 percent.

Despite improved affordability, 79 percent of respondents still consider having enough money for down payment and closing costs to be among of the biggest obstacles to buying a Home. Another obstacle is a lack of confidence in their ability to be approved for a loan, reported by 73 percent of respondents.

The good news is that Americans are seeing more stability in the real estate market. Nearly seven out of 10 believe that Home values have stabilized in their area; the same number expects Home sales to remain about the same through the end of the year.

While more than half (51 percent) say foreclosures are a problem in their area, the rate of foreclosures is also seen as stabilizing; 51 percent say the rate is about the same as last year. Thirty-six percent of respondents cite the recession, loss of jobs and the poor economy as the main reason for the ongoing foreclosure problem. This has also led to a slight increase in the number of people who believe the federal government should take a more active role overseeing loans and mortgages (44 percent, up from 43 percent last year).

While nearly seven out of 10 say it’s harder to sell a Home in their area today than it was a year ago, it’s less of a concern from last year when the number was 10 percentage points higher. This is most likely the result of lower Home inventories.

The 2010 National Housing Pulse Survey is conducted by American Strategies and Myers Research & Strategic Services for NAR’s Housing Opportunity Program. The telephone survey was among 1,209 adults living in the 25 most populous metropolitan statistical areas. The study has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

NAR’s Housing Opportunity Program, www.realtor.org/housingopportunity, was created in 2002 to encourage local Realtor® associations to create initiatives that help increase housing opportunities available to consumers and make affordable housing more readily available in their communities.

The National Association of Realtors®, “The Voice for Real Estate,” is America’s largest trade association, representing 1.1 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.

 

 

 

 

 

 Military Tax Credit

 

 

 

By Karen Dry and Linda Hebert

Rising female consumer power is changing the way companies design, make and market products — and it’s more than just adding pastels.

Women are a force not to be underestimated, pushing 80% of consumer spending in the U.S. alone.

They also are the deciding factor in 87% of all household purchases and, according to the marketing research firm Smith-Dahmer Associates, nearly 91% of all new Home purchasing decisions are made or influenced by female buyers.

And should a man make the final purchasing decision, well, his tastes and buying influences are determined by how he was raised by his mother or other prominent women in his life.

Women are the driving force of our economy. According to Northwestern Mutual, high-net-worth women account for 39% of the country’s top wealth earners; 2.5 million of them have combined assets of $4.2 trillion. More than 1.3 million women professionals and executives earn in excess of $100,000 annually. Nearly half — 43% — of Americans with more than $500,000 in assets are female.

Over the next decade, women will control two-thirds of consumer wealth in the U.S. and be the beneficiaries of the largest transference of wealth in our country’s history, according to Claire Behar, senior partner and director at the public relations and marketing firm Fleishman-Hillard in New York. Estimates range from $12 trillion to $40 trillion.

Many boomer women will experience a double inheritance windfall from their parents and their husbands. Luxury branding resonates with boomer woman.

The biggest mistake often made by marketers — and 68% of marketing executives in the U.S. are men — is assuming they know what women want without even asking.

“If the consumer had a sex, it would be female,” says Bridget Brennan, author of “Why She Buys: The New Strategy for Reaching the World’s Most Powerful Consumers.” “If the business world had a sex, it would be male. And therein lies the pickle.”

Taking a woman-centric approach means designing from her perspective, Brennan says. “At its core, it means understanding the female so innately that you can actually anticipate what she wants even before asking — especially during the buying experience,” she says in her book.

 

 

 

 

While much of the country is in the middle of the hottest summer in recent memory, residential construction appears to be just entering an early spring — with hopeful signs of more meaningful growth ahead.

At first glance, the June housing starts report appeared to be negative, with activity declining 5.0% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 549,000 units, down from a pace of 578,000 units in May. But on closer examination there were some positive signs.

Single-family starts fell a modest 0.7% — from 457,000 to 454,000 — suggesting that they are at or near bottom after dropping off with the expiration at the end of April of the Home buyer tax credit, which advanced a significant amount of housing demand into that month.

Although single-family building permits fell 3.4% in June — from 436,000 to 421,000 — this was due to a 7.8% decline in the South; the other regions were either flat (the West) or up slightly (the Northeast and Midwest).

Even multifamily construction, which continues to struggle against forces such as weak rents and the scarcity of financing, provided some basis for optimism. Largely responsible for the drop in total starts in June, multifamily starts fell 21.5% to a yearly rate of 95,000, down from May when they were running at a 12-month high of 121,000.

But the picture is not so bleak when viewed in the broader context of quarterly averages, which remove much of the noise created by the volatile monthly numbers.

Multifamily production in the second quarter proceeded at an annual pace of 111,000 units, which was up 19.4% from 93,000 in this year’s first quarter and up 45.0% from 76,000 in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Meanwhile, multifamily building permits in June jumped 19.6% to 165,000, their highest level since February 2009, from May’s 138,000. On a quarterly basis, permits rose 9.5% to 142,000 in the second quarter, up from 130,000 in the previous quarter.

At worst, multifamily construction appears to have found a solid bottom, and more optimistically appears to be on a steady, if erratic, upward course.

NAHB is forecasting that residential construction will slowly improve throughout the second half of this year and into next year, bolstered by continued low mortgage rates, affordable housing prices and an improving jobs market.

Conducted and released before the June housing starts and building permits numbers were reported, July’s NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) fell to 14, down from 16 in June, indicating that builders see little grounds for optimism at the present time. Expiration of the Home buyer tax credit, ongoing competition from foreclosed properties and short sales and difficulty in obtaining AD&C credit all contributed to the downbeat mood of the builders surveyed by NAHB.

Traces of rising optimism were found in the Northeast and the Midwest where the index rose, albeit to levels that remained low, and that improvement was supported by an increase in June’s single-family building permits for the two regions.

At the same time, slipping building confidence in the South was matched by a drop in the region’s permits. The HMI for the West also indicated an erosion of confidence, but the region’s single-family permits were flat.

Meanwhile, portraying gloomier consumers, the University of Michigan’s  Consumer Sentiment Index dropped to 66.5 in July from June’s 76.0. Beneath the surface there was positive news for housing, with 76% of the households surveyed believing that now is a good time to purchase a house, the second highest reading over the past 14 months and only one percentage point below the peak level for this period.

Further improvement in the economy may enable more households to act on this belief.

The dejected spirits of builders and consumers have not been helped by recent indications that the economy is slowing down. Industrial production rose a mere 0.1% in June, though it was still up a healthy 8.2% from a year earlier. Meanwhile, capacity utilization held steady at 74.1%, its highest level over the last year and a half.

Consumers retrenched in June, cutting retail sales 0.5% from May, the second monthly reduction in a row. Nonetheless, sales were still up 4.9% from a year earlier.

Even small movements in consumer spending, which is responsible for two-thirds of the gross domestic product (GDP), can have major implications for growth. NAHB believes that consumer spending will slowly increase over coming months, helping to support the economic recovery.

The seasonally adjusted monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) was down in June for the third consecutive month, falling 0.1% following a decline of 0.2% in May, but up 1.1% from a year earlier. Meanwhile, core inflation — excluding food and energy prices — rose a modest 0.9% from a year earlier.

The low rate of inflation gives the Federal Reserve the room to maintain its expansionary monetary policy and to keep mortgage rates low.

For the past year, the rental component of the CPI has been essentially flat, and as of June, it was down 0.1% from a year earlier. Homeownership “prices” — measured by using an owner’s equivalent rent, which is largely driven by the rent index without utilities — has also been drifting down, declining 0.3% over the past year.

The rent and owner components of the CPI make up 31% of the CPI. The soft rental market and excess vacancies have kept rents from rising, which has been a challenge to apartment owners who have seen other costs increase. It also has made it more difficult for multifamily projects to obtain financing.

The June Producer Price Index for finished goods also fell for the third month in a row, down 0.5% after declining by 0.3% in May. Nonetheless, the June reading was up 2.8% from a year earlier.

Weakness in construction contributed to a 0.7% drop in June for overall building materials prices for both single-family and multifamily construction, their first decrease in eight months. However, they were still up 3.9% and 3.5%, respectively, from a year earlier. Major contributors to June’s price decline were falling lumber, energy and copper prices.