This weekend in our open thread, I am going to introduce a new blog we have added to our blogroll:
MetroIntelligence Real Estate Advisors
‘Developments’ blog of the Wall Street Journal
I met Patrick Duffy, the writer for The Housing Chronicles Blog at a BIA function a couple of weeks ago. We exchanged cards and spoke about our blogs. After reading his blog, I wanted to include it in our blogroll to provide a different perspective.
Most of our blogroll is bubble blogs because these are the people who have been telling the truth. However, there are other bloggers that focus on housing that also see conditions for what they are that are not totally focused on the bearish side of the equation. I guess you could characterize including this blog as an attempt to be “fair and balanced,” but his writing isn’t the opposite of a bubble blog as much as it is from a slightly different perspective. It is possible to see the world from the eyes of those in the real estate profession without all the BS about “now is a great time to buy”.
Patrick and I come from the same world. I may not share all his views on public policy, but we both share the belief that the housing industry is important to our economy (just not as important as it became during the bubble). For those of you who want to see from the perspective of an industry insider without reading through the BS, I suggest you try out his blog.
With that introduction, I give you a few words from Patrick Duffy:
I
started The Housing Chronicles Blog in late 2007 because I noticed that
most of the ‘housing bubble’ blogs out there tended to only focus on
the bad news, thereby almost making a bubble a self-fulfilling
prophecy. Consequently, I saw the need for a more objective housing
blog that would harness my 20 years as an economics and development
consultant to the building industry. What I try to do is cite online
stories that I think would be interesting to anyone working in real
estate development, as well as provide occasional original articles on
everything from marketing online to builders taking on remodeling work
to stay afloat.
Although I originally intended the blog as a
regional voice, over time it’s expanded to include posts on the
national and international economic and political trends impacting all
types of real estate, and been regularly syndicated to Web sites run by
Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, USA Today, Builder magazine, Fox
News and Forbes. Besides the blog, I’ve also written on housing issues
for the Los Angeles Times, Builder & Developer magazine, Inman News and, most recently the “Developments” blog of the Wall Street Journal.
My
company, MetroIntelligence Real Estate Advisors, consults with home
builders, land developers, investors, lenders and municipalities on
real estate markets, opportunity analyses for existing land holdings,
and feasibility studies for specific projects. Prior to founding
MetroIntelligence, I was a Managing Director with Hanley Wood Market
Intelligence, which provides data on new home projects in multiple
markets throughout the U.S. I’ve also worked with a public home
builder managing their internal research activities, and first started
in the building industry as an intern with a land developer while
completing my degree in Economics from UC San Diego. In late 2008,
MetroIntelligence joined forces with Beacon Economics in order to leverage that firm’s team of PhD economists and accurate
track record of offering economic forecasts and also to reach out to
their client base including cities and counties, trade associations and
Wall Street institutions.
The Housing Chronicles Blog
MetroIntelligence Real Estate Advisors
‘Developments’ blog of the Wall Street Journal
{book5}
I guess since I printed the press release last week, people are sending me more of them. I found this one interesting because it is a sign of our times:
EQUITYLOCK FINANCIAL OFFERS HOMEOWNERS NATIONWIDE FIRST PRICE PROTECTION AGAINST MARKET DECLINES
Home Price Protection™ plans protect equity by reimbursing sellers in proportion to decline in their market’s home price index
AUSTIN, TX – Add “marketproofing” to weatherproofing, childproofing and other common sense protective measures homeowners should take. It’s the kind of peace of mind EquityLock Financial’s new Home Price Protection™ provides, in helping preserve home equity in the event of a sale in a down market.
EquityLock’s contracts, recently made available nationwide, pay homeowners when they sell a home in a market in which average home prices have dropped since their purchase, in direct proportion to the size of their market’s decline, as calculated by the OFHEO’s bellwether local real estate value index. It’s a concept that may help restore a critical sense of confidence to tentative buyers and skittish markets.
It works simply. Mr. Jones buys a home in Orlando for $300,000, and 10 years later, sells it for $290,000. Over that period, Orlando’s home price index falls 10 percent. Upon closing, EquityLock pays Mr. Jones $30,000: his original purchase price of $300,000 times 10 percent. (Assuming the same market decline, that same contract would have paid Mr. Jones $30,000 even if he sold at a profit.)
“It’s a basic fact, which recent events have indelibly underscored, that our most important investment is subject to forces greater than the skills of even the savviest individuals,” said David Camp, EquityLock’s Executive Vice President. “We started working on the concept that would become Home Price Protection while markets were booming, as an innovative form of personal financial management. Recent events have made the need for it all the more apparent.”
While in the marketplace since only late 2008, EquityLock’s product has drawn strong interest from builders, developers and brokers, a number of whom are already offering Home Price Protection to incentivize sales of new construction. That’s in contrast to sweeteners like free granite counters, hot tubs and commercial-grade appliances – nice to have, but with no power to restore confidence to understandably shaky buyers. According to the National Association of Realtors, 75 percent of the nation’s builders and developers are currently offering some form of sales incentive.
While only recently commercially available, equity protection is a concept rooted in two decades of of academic study and a pilot program in Syracuse, New York. Leading, longtime academic advocates of the idea include Yale’s Robert Schiller and other housing economists. Fed Chairman Bernanke recently cited equity protection as a way to help restore confidence to real estate markets.
The product is also available directly to individual buyers of either new or resold homes, in addition to builders, brokers and other institutional customers. Typical premiums for a contract running from 10-15 years currently average 1.5 percent of home closing prices; terms vary by market-based factors. Full information and online applications are available at www.equitylockfinancial.com.
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