Courtesy of Mish.
Correction: In what follows, I said initially said Virginia when I meant Maryland. Title and all references to Virginia corrected to Maryland. The person I quoted below said “MD” but somehow I spelled it out as Virginia. Apologies offered.
In response to Chicago Suburbs $1 Million+ Home Sales “Not Totally Dead” Yet; Rush for the Exit, I received emails from Maryland and Texas about slowdowns in those states.
Anecdotes do not constitute “data” but all three stories (counting Chicago) show significant weakness at the high-end in widely varying areas with distinct economic backdrop differences.
Paul from Maryland
Mish, I live in the Howard County, Maryland. It’s the 4th wealthiest county in the US. We recently had a presentation by a Realtor on the state of the market. It’s still a very strong seller’s market in the $600K and below range. Inventory is around 2.5 months on a 3 month rolling average basis.
However, the high end is abysmal. Houses asking $2.5M+ are not selling at all. There are 20 on the market with no sales. In the $1M to $2.5M category, 293 are up for sale, with only 27sold, a weak showing.
A friend of mine who lives in a high end area told me about a neighbor who had asked $1.5M and sold for $850K. The Realtor opined that that a recession next year was likely.
Paul
Aaron From Texas
Hello Mish,
Good article on Chicago. We are seeing a similar slowdown on the high end here in Houston, particularly in the Energy Corridor (West Houston). Right now Texas has a huge problem with skyrocketing residential property taxes. I was on the local news last night talking about the City of Sugar Land’s latest exercise in corporate welfare as they gifted about $8 million in new tax incentives to Schlumberger. That’s $8 million that will be strapped to the backs of homeowners who have no real access to due process to fight our corrupt appraisal districts. It’s actually fairly easy for corporations to get a nice discount from the CADs because Texas is a non-disclosure state, and the CADS get roughed up when they are sued in district court.
Aaron Layman
Oh Those CADs
I gave Aaron a call. “CAD” stands for County Appraisal District. It seems the CADs go way out of their way to appraise business property low and home prices high. They can get away with it because sale prices are not disclosed.
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