Local vs. national: Home sales plunge, feed recession fears
From The Washington Post: Home Sales Plunge, Feed Recession Fears: “The housing market plunged deeper into despair last month, with sales of new homes plummeting to their lowest level in more than 12 years.”
With headlines and stories like this one, it’s no wonder new home buyers are hesitating to entering the market. Based on these reports, the situation sounds bleak and you’d think buying a house is the last thing you should do.
The scary part to me is that nowhere above does the article say “nationally.” The author has forgotten the adage that all markets are local and when buying in real estate the only criteria you should remember is “location location location.”
The November 2007 real estate trend report for Washington, DC, shows overall sales down 12 percent but prices up more than 7 percent. But if you drill down even further to particular zip codes you’ll see 20002 had in increase in sales of 11 percent with a decrease in sales price of 4 percent, while zip code 20005 saw an increase in sales of 7.5 percent and a sales price increase of 19.5 percent.
Is the upshot not to believe the media? No, but we need to have an eye for how the media can parse statements. Know your numbers for where you want to live. Of course that’s my job to give you the information you need.
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