Booming Populations Contribute to Shortage in Some Areas
MANY U . S . COMMUNITIES SEEING REAL ESTATE INVENTORY AND LEAD SHORTAGE LEON MCKENZIE
Here are just a few statistics that support the issues with the current real estate market according to Heavens :
• “ At the current sales pace nationwide , the supply of previously owned houses would take 7.8 months to exhaust , not including the vast " shadow market " ( houses whose owners are waiting to sell until real estate recovers ) and " distressed properties " ( foreclosures and bank repossessions ).
• The inventory of unsold new houses is at 9.1 months of supply , and the volume for sale is flat at 234,000 homes — a 30year low .
• At the end of the fourth quarter , 24 percent of all U . S . homes with a mortgage were worth less than the loan balance . The housing vacancy rate in the fourth quarter was 2.7 percent .
• The U . S . homeownership rate is 67.2 percent , down from its peak of 69.2 percent in fourthquarter 2004 and decimated by record foreclosures .” 3
Booming Populations Contribute to Shortage in Some Areas
With the population in the United States continuing to shift to areas with temperate weather , positive economic conditions and those that don ’ t have issues with fresh water supplies , some areas are seeing a boom in population that no level of construction can meet . Connor Hyde writes , “ The Sugar Land and Missouri City area experienced a record number of home sales in 2014 . However , population growth in the area paired with various construction woes has led to a low home inventory , causing a rise in home prices and a dip in sales since January . Since 2012 Sugar Land and Missouri City real estate agents have classified the area ’ s housing market as a seller ’ s market due to the decreasing inventory of available homes and climbing home costs . As a result , many of Fort Bend County ’ s masterplanned communities are struggling to keep up with the demand brought on by the influx in population in the region .” 4
In fact , these changes to the market have driven up the prices of the homes that are currently on the market . Hyde quoted a local real estate agent , Shad Bogany , who has seen these changes first hand , “‘ We have more customers than we have houses to sell , and we are getting multiple offers on houses ,’ said Shad Bogany , a real estate agent with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate in Sugar Land and Missouri City . ‘ We do not have a lot of houses to sell , [ and ] we have the builders , who have been the biggest pushers of home sales in Fort Bend [ County ], behind in construction .’” 5