Current real estate market - Essay Example

Your 16 December 2007 The Current Real E Market According to the Dallas Morning News For the purpose ofcompleting this assignment utilizing an approach that is of particular relevance to the generalized real estate appraisal field and in order to ensure adequate content and a wide variety of usable information, a major metropolitan area newspaper was selected: The Dallas Morning News. This distinct newspaper is available in both print and via the publisher’s worldwide website at www.dallasmorningnews.com. The printed version of the newspaper is relatively easy to navigate thanks to good quality formatting and titles and subtitles that are easy to distinguish from regular paragraph content, but the online format has been cleverly designed to be more practical and versatile for the everyday user, especially if that user happens to be a buyer, seller, or real estate professional.

The purpose of this essay is to describe the content found in the real estate section of a newspaper of this type—including updates on interest rates, surveys of construction costs and sales prices, and articles referencing legislation or other issues that have an effect on the real estate market—as well as to respond to the located material, pointing out how such content could be helpful to a real estate appraiser. Located in the center of the real estate section of the newspaper’s website was an absolutely indispensable tool to a real estate appraiser.

It provided links to articles and information on some incredibly specific areas related to real estate, including general real estate news; homes; condos; second homes; money issues; trends; and neighborhood information. Clearly, such a vast wealth of information can be utilized using this tool that it has been categorized to make it easier for those with a vested interest in real estate to locate what they are searching for. Interest rate information was available through two major sources in the newspaper: articles discussing interest rate trends and tools and calculators that would allow one to calculate such a rate using information such as the purpose of their desired loan, the type of loan, the discount point range, and the estimated loan amount.

Obviously, tools of this type can only provide rough estimates as financial figures such as interest rates are based on a variety of factors outside of the tool’s capabilities, such as creditworthiness. There were literally tons of articles in the newspaper that pointed to a vast increase in the number of foreclosures over the course of the past year, provided information detailing the differences between fixed and variable interest rates, and informational articles aimed at informing the consumer how to avoid interest rate traps.

In general, the articles showed a trend towards decreasing home sales and, as a result, decreasing interest rates. Regarding construction costs and sales prices and when referencing the aforementioned housing market, it makes sense that the real estate section of this newspaper was ripe with sales and ‘builder’s specials.’ The newspaper indicated that builders of major neighborhoods in the Dallas/Fort Worth area are desperately trying to sell large numbers of homes through offering special incentives such as no down payments and no closing costs.

Another interesting finding of this type was the large amount of sales and incentives linked to lease-to-own, owner finance, and no credit check type programs. The initial impression upon encountering the large amount of these sales and programs is that there are far more houses than there are buyers in this market. As a result, builders appear to be keeping their construction costs to a minimum in less-than-prime areas and offering incentives to sell what they do build, regardless of quality or extra features.

Legislation and state and federal programs, in addition to the ‘no-qualifying’ type programs that were described above, make it easier for a wide variety of people to find homes in this particular market. Based on the large amount of new homes and the tremendous growth that appears to be going on in the area, it appears that the bumps in the housing market have done little to slow the building of new homes in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Rather, the most obvious trend appears to be those non-traditional buyers or those who would have not qualified to purchase a home in the past, particularly through a bank, are now able to buy homes that they previously only dreamed of.

This is particularly relevant to an appraiser, as the value of a home is not the top concern of this type of non-traditional buyer; simply being able to buy a home is their main goal. Therefore, houses can actually be sold for higher prices than they would be sold to more traditional and creditworthy buyers.BibliographyReal Estate. Section home page. Dallas Morning News. 16 December 2007.