2008 San Antonio Housing Forecast
January 15, 2008
All Real Estate is Local
Experts at the 23rd Annual San Antonio Housing Forecast held January 7th, 2008, said San Antonio is definitely the place to be. A positive forecast was given by the San Antonio Board of REALTORS®’ Chairman Bob Leonard who stated that 2008 will produce another strong resale (existing homes) year. The San Antonio Board of REALTORS® and the Greater San Antonio Builders Association hosted this year’s forecast at the Omni Hotel in the Colonnade where more than 700 attended.
During the course of the morning, six speakers delivered statistical facts and their analysis of what lies ahead in coming months in the housing market. Richard Perez, the President and CEO of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce presented goals where the Chamber hopes to promote and grow business to transform San Antonio from “a good city to one that is great.”
In addition to Mr. Perez’s comments, Henry Cisneros, the chairman of City-View, warned that actions should be taken before a recession occurs. “San Antonio is stronger than other places [in the nation],” Cisneros commented, but said that 2008 is not the year for any ‘home-run plays’; instead it is a year for ‘steady judgment’. “I believe 2008 will be a turnaround [from where we have been],” Cisneros said.
Bob Leonard, 2008 Chairman of the Board for the San Antonio Board of REALTORs, stressed that all real estate is local. He reported on the “resale single family” home market in 2007 and how it was comparable to San Antonio’s second best year, 2005. Mr. Leonard talked about how 2007 was a year of challenges including lower home sales and subprime loan problems, but emphasized how 2008 proves to be a year of opportunity. “San Antonio ranked number four out of the top ten cities with price gains at a 7.89% increase in 2007,” Leonard said.
Following Mr. Leonard’s remarks, David Berson, Senior Vice President, Chief National Economist & Strategist at the PMI group, gave a recap from the national perspective. Dr. Berson commented there hasn’t been a significant decline in the housing market since 1994, and one of the reasons this is occurring now is because investors are pulling out. He forecasts that the biggest decline in the housing market is behind us and the national real estate market will be looking up by 2009.
Michael Moore, 2008 President of the Greater San Antonio Builders Association spoke about the population growth of the city and how that has and will affect our economy. He also talked about barriers to future growth that included adequate water resources, unfavorable development regulations and immigration reform.
Immediately following Mr. Moore’s presentation, Jack Inselmann, Vice President, Central U.S. Division of Metrostudy presented information about job growth trends and annual housing trends. His data showed that San Antonio is well under the national average rate of unemployment and that the average home price annual percent of change has increased over the last ten years. He also explained that our finished inventory is up from 2006, but has dropped since the second quarter of 2007.
All six experts gave their opinions of what 2008 was going to look like and talked about population growth and national statistics in housing.
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