http://www.bprowse.com/index/weblog/index/ Kitsap County Real Estate Market Information en hugh@bprowse.com 2008-05-11T21:09:00-08:00 http://www.bprowse.com/index/weblog/kitsap-real-estate-market-report-april-2008/ Since the start of this month the most amazing market trend has been the ability of financial markets to tolerate relatively bad economic news without collapsing.  At the end of April stock markets were near their highs for the year.  The TED spread, which is the difference between the 3 month Treasury bill interest rate and the 3 month LIBOR and is widely used as a measure of liquidity and the degree to which banks will lend to one another, has fallen below 1% after being higher for most of March and April. (In times of good liquidity, this spread has ranged between .1 and .5%.) During this same period, Fannie Mae reported a $2.2 billion loss, AIG reported a $7.8 billion loss, UBS reported an $11 billion loss, WaMu reported a $1.14 billion loss, and there were as well several other reported institutional losses or near bankruptcies. Apparently the sky is not falling. kitsap-market-blog Admin 2008-05-11T21:09:00-08:00 http://www.bprowse.com/index/weblog/kitsap-regional-markets-in-march/ We have published this article monthly for over a year to explore some of the significant variations in the Kitsap Real Estate market. We try to breakout the new construction sales from the resale market in Poulsbo to give a more accurate presentation of conditions there. The descriptive comments for each area below cite year-to-date numbers. kitsap-market-blog Admin 2008-05-01T04:56:00-08:00 http://www.bprowse.com/index/weblog/download-the-april-2008-prowse-and-company-newsletter/ Download our April 08 Newsletter. This month we talk about Miss Poulsbo’s platform supporting Habitat for Humanity, including the Habitat house being built only by women. Also we discuss how falling house prices impact our economy and some ideas about what needs to be done. Of course there’s also that pirate photo from the Rotary Auction! prowse-and-company-news Admin 2008-04-25T22:46:00-08:00 http://www.bprowse.com/index/weblog/april-2008-mid-month-kitsap-real-estate-outlook/ The real estate and finance crisis continues to sort itself out. Banks have been revealing huge additional losses on their quarterly earnings statements. Banks and brokerage houses continue to struggle with liquidity and have tightened their lending standards. The dollar remains weak, and this weakness along with speculation and demand for commodities and begun to worry some economists and government leaders because of the prospects for rising inflation. As a result of these inflationary concerns coupled with improvements in equity markets, futures markets now indicate a reduced probability for additional rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. The housing market remains very slow, and home prices continue to fall. The NAR reported this week that in March the seasonally adjusted annual sales rate for existing homes dropped another 2% to 4.93 million. New home sales are at their weakest level since 1991. On the other hand, the stock market has been buoyed by the poor but better than expected financial reports and by the unanticipated strength of Google, IBM, Intel, Caterpillar, and other manufacturing and technology companies. A graph of industrial production looks un-recession like.  kitsap-market-blog Admin 2008-04-24T22:34:00-08:00 http://www.bprowse.com/index/weblog/kitsap-real-estate-market-report-march-2008/ Most of the recent national news about the real estate market has concerned various competing plans in Congress to provide relief to homeowners and in some cases builders. This can be seen as good news. Both the stock market and news about the banking and credit markets have been calmed to some extent by the activities of the Federal Reserve in dealing with the Bear Stearns crisis.  For example, the recent announcement of a $7 billion dollar cash infusion, layoff of 3000 workers, and a sharp cutback in stock dividend at Washington Mutual received a muted response in financial markets. While some economists continue to tell of gloom and doom, others are changing the tenor to indicate that the government now has some degree of control in guiding the problem to a successful resolution, though there is still considerable uncertainty about when a turn around might occur. Most economists now consider the US to be in a recession, though the government has not made a formal declaration. Unemployment has gone up for 3 consecutive months, and consumption is down. With our weak dollar the bright spot in our economy is exports, which should only continue to improve as the year goes on.  Earnings reports for the first quarter will be coming out soon and should tell us more about how financial markets are holding up. kitsap-market-blog Admin 2008-04-09T18:18:00-08:00 http://www.bprowse.com/index/weblog/kitsap-real-estate-local-markets-in-february-2008/ The daily news has calmed somewhat since the fall of Bear Stearns. JP Morgan Chase has agreed to raise their bid for the failed investment bank to $10 per share. A recent report in the Wall St Journal revealed that thousands of new condominiums are about to come on the market even though current sales are weak and there is already a 10 month supply of inventory. These excesses are mostly in the Florida and elsewhere in the South, California, and Arizona. We have had a hint of the problem in Kitsap County with the auction sale planned on April 20th for The 400 condominium units in Bremerton. Bainbridge Island has about 117 condominium properties currently listed and had 7 sales in February - an inventory turnover rate of 17 months. New construction developers in Kitsap County have been offering generous bonus and financing programs to move their inventories, and one developer, Central Highlands, Inc at Poulsbo Place 2, has discussed a program of buyer price protection. Details of that program were listed but not yet posted on their web site. kitsap-market-blog Admin 2008-03-28T19:52:00-08:00 http://www.bprowse.com/index/weblog/download-the-march-2008-waterfront-update/ Download the March 2008 Waterfront Update. This is your guide to our latest waterfront listings and market statistics about waterfront sales in Kitsap County. waterfront Admin 2008-03-25T22:16:00-08:00 http://www.bprowse.com/index/weblog/mid-march-kitsap-real-estate-outlook/ On Sunday JP Morgan Chase agreed to acquire Bear Stearns (for $2 per share - down from about $70 per share last week), the shocking and rapid demise of one of the 5 largest investment banks. In addition to being the product of subprime mortgage defaults and extensive collateralized debt obligations, this failure was also somehow a product of the leveraging schemes used by hedge funds and other investors. The role of leverage in the failure of this bank and its threat to other banks and funds has not been well explained, and perhaps underlies much of the uncertainty in financial markets. Sunday’s Washington Post had a simple description of the problem, which may well continue to dog the recovery in banking and financial institutions. Inability to find the cheap short term cash loans that facilitate much of an investment bank’s business is another factor. Yet another factor was that hedge funds and other investors began closing their accounts at Bear Stearns and moving funds elsewhere - sort of a bank run by big investors. kitsap-market-blog Admin 2008-03-18T05:42:00-08:00 http://www.bprowse.com/index/weblog/download-the-march-prowse-and-company-newsletter/ Download our March 08 Newsletter. This month we talk about the current real estate market with statistical graphs and tell you about the upcoming, first of a kind, Poulsbo Rotary Auction, donations to the Poulsbo Lions, and more! Please take a look. prowse-and-company-news Admin 2008-03-12T20:13:00-08:00 http://www.bprowse.com/index/weblog/conforming-and-fha-loan-limits-increased/ It’s big news for many home buyers! The FHA and conforming conventional loan limits have been increased to $475,000 for Kitsap County Washington.  kitsap-market-blog Admin 2008-03-09T01:18:01-08:00