What can we expect from the real estate market in 2012? Trulia's Chief Economist, Jed Kolko, wrote about his top 5 housing predictions for the upcoming year on Trulia's blog. Here they are, in a nutshell:
1. Even though fewer people will have trouble paying their mortgages, 2012 will show an increase in foreclosures. This will be because a lot of delinquent borrowers in the last couple years haven't finished going through the foreclosure process yet. So it might seem like the housing market will still be tanking, even though in reality it will just be leveling off.
2. Vacancies will go down, and rent prices will go up, which will only hurt the job market even more if folks already in a tough spot can't afford rent anymore.
3. Mortgage rates will go up - but don't worry, they'll still be pretty low, and in reality this is a sign of a strengthening economy. A blessing in disguise.
4. The government won't be passing any new housing reforms in 2012, since in an election year politicians are more hesitant to rock the boat. And since the economy is slowly improving, there's not a real 'crisis' to demand their attention anymore.
5. The cities that will have booming housing markets will be those that also push job growth. No big surprise here, but watch for the locations with high-skill, high-education job markets to pull the housing market back on its feet.
Read the full post here.
