In today's LA Times, real estate writer Alejandro Lazo writes that rising rents around the Southland might be the first signs of a housing recovery. Rents are up 13 percent year-over-year in Orange County, fueled by a stronger job picture.
You can read the article here.
The Association has named David W. Shepherd as its new CEO. He will begin his duties here on April 2. You can read more about him in our press release.
Economist Robert Shiller, he of the famous Case/Shiller Index, is cautious and not given to firm pronouncements, but on CNBC yesterday he said maybe, just maybe, the housing sector has hit rock bottom.
Here's the exchange, courtesy of Business Insider:
"It could turn around," Shiller told CNBC's Brian Sullivan. "We're seeing some good news now. Starts, permits, confidence, the NAHB housing index is strikingly up. It's still low, but it's up."
CNBC's Mandy Drury pursued the matter further: "Where is the endgame, Robert?"
"Well, in terms of housing, we might be at the end game," Shiller responded. "Home prices are back to a normal level. They could just stay here, and that would be all right, right?
"Housing is very affordable, interest rates are down, prices are down to kind of a normal level. They haven't overshot normal. So maybe in terms of housing, this it it. This is it."
"Did you just say this may be the bottom?" asked Sullivan.
"It might be, yeah," answered Shiller. "Things can turn quickly and sharply. It's too soon to tell."
Our colleagues back at the National Association for Home Builders in Washington, D.C., have a couple of important items to share today.
First is news that legislation has been introduced to improve the lead paint rules that homeowners and remodelers must comply with. The bill, by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., would reinstate the opt-out provision to allow home owners without small children or pregnant women residing in the home - not the government - to decide whether to require lead paint removal compliance, allow remodelers to correct paperwork errors without facing full penalties and provide an exemption for emergency renovations. It would also eliminate the requirement that recertification training be “hands on,” preventing remodelers having to travel to training facilities out of their region.
Second, NAHB has developed a new comprehensive framework for housing finance system reform that would transition Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to a new mortgage securitization system for single-family and multifamily conventional mortgages.
NAHB officials say the plan seeks to overhaul the housing finance system to ensure that housing credit is available and affordable in the future and is delivered through a competitive, efficient, sound, safe and stable system.
A new study out from USC shows that most cities around the region are becoming more ethnically diverse. The L.A. Times' blog today reports on the study, which is based on demographic information in the 2010 Census.
Nearly two-thirds of the municipalities in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Ventura and San Bernardino counties were found to be multiracial in 2010, compared to just more than half the region’s cities in 1990. Overall, the five-county region saw major increases in its Latino and to a lesser extent, its Asian populations from 1990 to 2010. Over the same period, the percentages of white and black residents declined.
Builders interested in their changing market can read the report here.
March 13, 2012