Gene Wunderlich is the Government Affairs Director for Southwest Riverside County Association of Realtors. If you have questions on the market please contact me at GAD@srcar.org or to keep up with the latest legislative and real estate trends go to http://gadblog.srcar.org/.
As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, it’s interesting that ‘The American Dream (In Flames)’ was the title of a presentation to Directors of the California Association of Realtors® delivered by CAR CEO Joel Singer last week during our Legislative meetings in Sacramento. That was during a week that saw additional […]
For some reason people frequently ask me what comes next for our overheated housing market. To this I honestly reply that I am nearly as clueless as they are. But there are some probabilities and even some strong possibilities about what could happen. Like everyone else, I rely on a cadre of prognosticators to inform […]
January was a slow month for housing so why not blame it on something the President said or did? It’s a popular pastime these days. But, of course we knew January was going to be slow anyway. History has proven that, so it wasn’t a big surprise, but it’s still nice to have a scapegoat. […]
So, looking back, 2017 was a pretty decent year for our local housing market. After the big fade in November, sales bumped up just enough in December to keep my forecast of 12,000 sales viable. Just barely. The computer tells me, (and computers are seldom wrong), that we finished the year with 12,017 sales while […]
With the possible exception of Congressional Republicans, there’s no sense of urgency right now. Let’s get through this year and see what 2018 brings. Depending on what H.R.1. finally looks like, and which ‘expert’ you listen to, the housing market will either be a little better, a little worse, or about the same next year. […]
Uncertainty was also abundant in reviewing the current tax reform plans circulating in Congress. Initial analysis pointed to several areas of the proposed bill that would not be beneficial to homeowners, nor would the elimination of SALT be helpful to residents in high tax states like ours. Of course, residents in 44 states with low, […]
You may have seen today’s Press Enterprise article headlined Inland Housing Called ‘Overvalued’, quoting a recent report from CoreLogic which categorized various housing markets across the country as either ‘normal’, ‘undervalued’ or ‘overvalued’. Now I routinely peruse CoreLogic reports and generally find them to be quite helpful, but for the life of me I can’t […]
Sure, we’ve gotten a little spoiled this year. Home sales for the region were up 22% in May, topped off by correction, as they say, with sales dropping 25% from June (1,360 / 1,022) and even falling 4% under last July (1,067). Given last month’s drop in pending home sales and our historical trends showing […]
That mark will likely stand for awhile as pending home sales were down 13% from the prior month and the rest of the year is historically slower than the first half. If we can maintain the run rate, we appear to be on our way to another year-over-year increase extending the run to five consecutive […]
At a recent event for Realtors® in D.C. , Fox Business News Tonight anchor Lou Dobbs was queried on some of the changes proposed by the Trump administration loosening ‘safeguards’ imposed by Dodd-Frank and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. In response to the question “Shouldn’t there be more rules for Wall Street”? Dobbs replied, “There […]
