Heath's Blog

In reference to the Top Ten States Searched report that REindex.com just placed on its website:  NY - There are market areas of strength apart from the weight of NYC population that are the reason for so many people searching for NY real estate.  In an area that supports 2 teams for football, baseball, basketball, hockey, and who knows what else, there are just a lot of people that consider the NYC area the place to be.  Then there is the rest of NY.  Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, Syracuse, and Lawng-Eyelan, all operate on the outskits of a place where million dollar closets and all night pizzas rule. The shear numbers of people interested in NYC real estate will always make the market there active.  And yet, the other areas of New York are quietly gaining their own notariety as places of real estate interest. 

While Buffalo still has a ways to go before the foreclosures are absorbed, there are forecasts showing the Buffalo/Niagara Falls area with appreciation into 2009.  Also, a number of new banks have opened in Buffalo.  Rochester is growing steadily and consistently.  Syracuse is also quietly on the increase.  Many New York cities have reasonable job growth and stablility.  So apart from the massive weight of NYC, the condition of the New York  real estate market as a whole is positive. 

In the first quarter report of the OFHEO, New York has many areas with strong positive, appreciation.  The Albany-Schenectady-Troy area is shown to have almost 3% appreciation. ( page 26 of the report ) The Buffalo/Niagara Falls, Rochester, Syracuse, Glens Falls areas have more than 3% appreciation and Elmira is close to 7%.  The Utica/Rome area is almost 8%, Binghamton is close to 10%, and Ithaca is over 10% appreciation!  Each of these areas can be researched for its own unique econimic reasons, but these numbers are encouraging.

Some of the top cities that have appreciated in 2008 so far are:

Houma-Bayou Cane-Thibodaux, LA

Grand Junction, CO

Wenatchee, WA

Austin-Round Rock, TX

Billings, MT

Provo-Orem, UT

Anderson, SC and

The report can be found on the OFHEO web site. There is good data here that shows the first part of 2008 is looking positive for most of the United states real estate market.

Tennessee real estate sales were ranked 14th out of all 50 US states in home price appreciation in 2007!. Since the 1980s home prices have appreciated in Tennessee by almost 215%! One of the cities that gained attention for real estate values in Tennessee is Chattanooga. There are less than 100 cities in Tennessee. The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) produced an 88 page reports that says Tennessee real estate sales were number 14 in the list of states that had "...positive four-quarter appreciation" in 2007...". The report has lots of positive information, but it hasn't been widely publicized. The list of states and their ranking by appreciation over 2007 starts on page 25 of the .pdf report. Tennessee was one of the ten states that lost home price ground in 2007.

80% of the United States had POSITIVE appreciation in 2007 according to the chart page 25 and 26 of the report.  And, of the 121 cities monitored in the report, 65% of US cities had appreciation.  Too bad these statistics aren't being widely reported.  This report uses a few different set of statistics to show different aspects of the housing market.

United States real estate still provides one of the best available forms of investment for people looking to grow wealth over the long run. Real Estate professionals should be using blogging, newslettering, pressreleasing, emailing, and any other useful method to get this positive news out!

The report can be found at:  http://www.ofheo.gov/media/pdf/4q07hpi.pdf

Happy Selling and Listing!

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Other TN cities
Bristol; Knoxville; Memphis; Nashville; Davidson; Murfreesboro; Franklin;
Clarksville; Cleveland; Jackson; Johnson City; Morristown;

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