Despite the nationwide slowdown in housing starts and sales, the Pittsburgh region is one of the brighter spots in Pennsylvania and the nation, home builders said Wednesday.
"Although production of new housing is down 50 percent from the peak construction years of 2003 and 2004, the region is one of the few markets not seeing a decline in overall pricing levels," said Frank Thompson, president of Sweetwater Builders Inc. of Cranberry.
Thompson spoke during a conference call Wednesday, hosted by the Pennsylvania Builders Association, that included Ken Kurtz, president of Ken Kurtz Builders in Jermyn, Lackawanna County, and Dave Seiders, consultant to the National Association of Home Builders.
Thompson said new housing prices have not declined in the region and the inventory of unsold new houses is slowly decreasing. But that has not spiked sales because buyers are concerned about whether they can sell their current home, job security and whether new housing prices will decline, he said.
In October, the median new home price in the five-county Pittsburgh region was $273,607, up slightly from $267,050 in October 2007, according to RealStats, a South Side-based real estate information service. The median price is the point at which half the homes sold for more and half for less.
Housing starts have held up in the region until recently, said Jeff Burd, president of Tall Timber Group, which monitors the local construction industry.
"It has only been the last two months -- October and November -- that the numbers have really dived," Burd said. There were 115 starts in October and 81 in November, he said. He had forecast 1,700 to 1,800 starts this year.
In October, there were 236 sales of new homes and townhomes, down from 284 last year, according to RealStats. Money spent on new homes in the five-county area dropped 15.5 percent from $85.7 million to $72.4 million with the sharpest declines in Beaver and Westmoreland counties where the activity was off by more than 50 percent. Allegheny County had the only increase in sales during October. Also included were Butler and Washington counties.
Nationally, housing starts fell 18.9 percent from October to November -- what some experts are calling the worst month since record-keeping began in 1947 -- the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.
"Some builders are able to weather the current economic crisis but others have been devastated and either have gone into home improvement or temporarily suspended operations," said Thompson, a former president of the Builders Association of Metropolitan Pittsburgh. "Several customers I have been working with for awhile agreed to buy a house, but have also asked construction be delayed until the spring, in hope that prices will decline," he said.
Kurtz said the picture was worse in the eastern part of the state.
A builder of two to five homes annually, Kurtz said he had five solid buyers recently and four of the five decided to delay construction start until spring, citing the economy and worry that their investment will maintain its value.
Housing starts are down two-thirds from the peak years, he said.
"Our message to Congress is to fix housing first. That's a key component to turning the economy around," Seiders said.
No comments:
Post a Comment