Regional Spotlight: Don’t be Fooled – Housing’s Booming

RISMEDIA, Sept. 24, 2007-(MCT)-Stan Longhofer has a message for Wichita home buyers and sellers: Don’t believe the doom and gloom you hear about the housing market. Longhofer, the director of Wichita State University’s Center for Real Estate, is releasing a 2008 Wichita housing market forecast brimming with optimism this week at a Wichita Area Association of Realtors meeting.That’s despite the well-documented housing market crash on the coasts, where speculators are walking away from investment homes with rapidly slowing appreciation.

“People should basically not listen to everything that’s being said on the national reports, do what they ordinarily do and not let gloom and doom affect their housing decisions in Wichita,” Longhofer said.

Amen, said broker Cindy Carnahan.

“Best year I’ve ever had,” she said.

“Why? I don’t know why for sure, but I see a lot of confidence out there, confidence in the economy and confidence in the residential real estate market.”

The reason: Wichita isn’t California, Arizona and New York, where speculator-driven foreclosures have crashed the housing market.

Instead, existing home sales rose 3.4% locally in 2006 as nationwide sales fell by 8.5%.

And they’re on a pace to continue rising, Longhofer said, by 2.7% this year and another 1.7% in 2008.

Home values continue to appreciate around 4%: 4.4% in 2006, an anticipated 3.8% this year and a forecast 4.4% in 2008.

All are slightly above national averages of 3.2% through the second quarter of this year.

And while a wet, cold winter slowed construction and sales, both should rebound, Longhofer said.

New construction will end the year down 2.1% before rising 6.5% in 2008. New home sales will fall 9.7% this year before rising 5.2% next year as new inventory reaches the market.

“It’s been a good year — already,” said Sharon West, senior vice president of Plaza Real Estate.

“I’ve got absolutely nothing negative to say. Everything I’ve listed has sold. (Interest) rates are fabulous…. Business is just excellent.”

The driver for that stability is the growth of the Wichita economy, said Longhofer and Janet Harrah, director of Wichita State’s Center for Economic Development and Business Research.

Wichita employment rose 5.3% in July and the college’s economic indicators and current conditions indices are moving upward.

“Certainly we rise and fall based on what’s going on in the aviation industry, even though it makes up a smaller fraction of the economy than it did 20 years ago,” Longhofer said.
Aviation isn’t alone, Harrah said.

“We’re seeing good employment growth across the board.”

So are many other American markets that are overshadowed by the coastal housing problems, Longhofer said.

“Lots of markets are as solid as we are,” he said.

Wichita’s immediate future is as a boom seller’s market, Longhofer said.

“There are always segments that go slower, people with unique and different homes,” he said. “But if you listen to the advice of a quality Realtor and go in with a sense of price, you’re in a favorable position in Wichita to sell.”

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