News from NAR

I had the opportunity to attend the NAR Convention in Las Vegas last week. I was interested in hearing what Lawrence Yun, NAR’s new Chief Economist had to say about the marketplace. His topic was: Economic Issues & Residential Real Estate Business Trends Forum

He said 2008 is a year of opportunity. While sales are down in 2007, it has still been the fifth best year ever in real estate. He mentioned this is because all real estate is local- like the weather. You can’t give an average weather forecast for the nation. You give a forecast for a city or a region.

Prices were down nationally 1 ½% after a run up of about 50% in many regions over the past 5 years. Sub-prime loans affected less than 10% of all homeowner nationwide. Yun was optimistic seeing a rebound in 2008 due to the following market conditions:

• GDP of 2.8%
• Job growth of 1.1%
• Inflation to remain at slightly under 3%
• Interest rates to rise only slightly
  

He believes because sales are down this year and though there have been fewer construction starts, there will be strong pent up demand in many areas. That was very good news for the audience of Realtors.