Some Good News For Realtors
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Realtors say sales of single-family homes in Maine have increased by 21 percent between January 2012 and the same month this year.
Statistics released by a statewide multiple listing service show 664 homes changed hands last month, compared to 547 in January 2012.
Also good news: Youngstown News
Talk of more deal-making sent the stock market higher Tuesday, putting the Dow Jones industrial average within close reach of its all-time high.
Reports that retailers Office Depot and OfficeMax are discussing a merger came after big corporate deals for Heinz and Dell were announced in recent weeks. Some investors are betting that more deals could be on the way as buyers pay premium prices for publicly traded companies.
Last year there were 100 foreclosure notices a day going out in Maine. That's 3,000 homes a month. Many of those loans were paid off before the homeowner was actually evicted. That said, many of the homes sold in Maine were REOs. That is real estate owned by lenders such as banks, the FHA, HUD or VA owned houses. The effects of Dodd/Frank will be with us for years. There are a lot of people in our country who are one paycheck from being homeless.
The spin business is very effective as citizens become more eager for a scrap of good news. I have a book titled "How to Lie With Statistics". Read all statistical data bearing in mind why the information is being published.
It's raw data. It would be nice to see where the sales have been by county, chance are the troubled counties saw no changes.
Single family homes sure beat looking at section 8 housing numbers.
Washington County saw a large increase in both unit sales and prices. They were second homes, often purchased with cash. When the average citizen sees information on home sales he thinks he is seeing data on family residences. That market is still slowing. Sales of seasonal homes are the ones increasing. An example is a very nice 4 bedroom home in a Millinocket neighborhood that was bought as a base of operations for snowmobiling and fishing. It was purchased for $16,000 while the mills were down.
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So a state population of 1,300,000 and 21,000 homes for sale in Maine, they sold 117 more houses. I wouldn't call it a "shift" to a more balanced market.