San Antonio Realty Market Expected to Improve

This very timely article was recently published in the "San Antonio Express News."

Article Take Aways:

San Antonio residential home sales should improve in 2009, but median home prices are expected to remain flat and home value appreciation may be as low as 1%.

San Antonio’s home market is fundamentally stronger than most markets nationwide.

Here’s the article.

By Aïssatou Sidimé - "Express-News"

Existing home sales should improve in 2009, based on home sale increases during the last month, according to presenters and attendees at the San Antonio Board of Realtors Annual Housing Forecast on Tuesday morning.

“I’m expecting to be at least at 2005 volumes and maybe slightly less than 2007,” said presenter Bob Gardner, CEO of Legacy Mutual Mortgage.

Still, 2009 won’t see a return to the boom days of 2006. Median home prices in San Antonio are expected to stay flat.

Gardner’s predictions were welcome news for an industry that appeared to shift closer to the ugly national picture in November when the number of home sales dropped 32 percent and the median price fell 4 percent.

Based on home sales for the last five weeks, Gardner told the audience of 650 attendees at the Omni San Antonio Hotel in the Colonnade that he’s taken the unusual step of hiring new employees in an industry that had been shrinking.

“There are people coming out of the woodwork buying housing,” Gardner said. “I thought January would be more like 2003, but I don’t think so. We are expecting to exceed our (sales) predictions by 35 percent. I’ve had to add some contract people to handle the business.”

Other presenters, including Paul Bishop, managing director of real estate research for the National Association of Realtors, and Mark Dotzour, chief economist of the Texas A&M University’s Real Estate Center, agreed that San Antonio’s housing market is fundamentally stronger than most markets nationwide.

“In 2008, San Antonio had job growth, cheap mortgages and positive price appreciation but declining volumes,” Dotzour said. “It tells me local economics are not the issue. It’s a lack of confidence in our government. And when that is repaired, buyers will start buying again.”

Bishop said these same positive forces also kept foreclosures down statewide compared to the rest of the country.

Actual data from 2008 may not show as cheery a picture, though.

Mortgage rates do continue to fall, and job growth is positive. But home price appreciation averaged less than 1 percent for the year through November 2008. The median sales price was $150,400 during that period, up slightly from $150,100 for the comparable period in 2007 And home sales declined 18 percent from 21,178 sales in the same period in 2007, according to SABOR figures.

New foreclosures were kept to just 0.6 percent in Texas versus 1.1 percent nationally in the third quarter of 2008, Bishop said. But San Antonio foreclosure postings spiked 46 percent in January to the single highest number of auction filings for one month since at least 2000.

Anecdotally, local agents also report higher home sales, but they say Gardner’s forecasted 35 percent increase is more than they expect to see. Several agents reported their December and January sales were either flat or increasing. Historically, sales dip in these months.

But, still, that’s hardly 35 percent.

“I was at 2005 levels (last year) and expect to do better,” said Missy Stagers, an agent with Coldwell Banker D’Ann Harper Realtors. Stagers said she has four deals already set to close this month, versus one in January 2008 and nine in January 2007. She expects to benefit from shrinking new-home inventories and a stronger general economy.

Presenters said the lackluster 2008 figures masked some strong sectors.

Lisa Schmidt of The Phyllis Browning Co. said downtown condo sales are ahead of projection. “Pretty much what has been finished is sold,” she said of the 910 condos built or placed under construction since 2007.

In addition, there were strong price-per-square-foot increases in several communities in 2008, including Rogers Ranch, Colonies North, Cordillera Ranch and Terrell Hills, which each showed at least a 5 percent price increase in 2008, Gardner said.

End Of Article

If you have questions or need San Antonio realty advice or assistance, don’t hesitate to contact the SanAntonioHomeQuest Realty Solutions team at sanantoniohomequest.com , Keller Williams Legacy, (800) 201-9145, (210) 863-2661, (210) 867-8743.