The Housing Chronicles Blog: Quoted in L.A. times story on new home sales

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Quoted in L.A. times story on new home sales

The L.A. Times' Alejandro Lazo called me yesterday to talk about the latest statistics from Dataquick for Southern California, and, more specifically, what to expect for new home sales in 2012. In brief: a slight improvement which will be more pronounced in urban infill areas than in outlying suburbs unless builders have a compelling proposition to make versus cheaper existing homes (such as Lennar's inter-generational NextGen homes or KBHome's energy-efficient models):

Sales of newly built homes suffered the most, falling 12% in December from the previous month to hit their lowest level on record for that month. Patrick Duffy, principal of MetroIntelligence Real Estate Advisors, said 2012 was not likely to be much better for home builders.

"We can expect a slight improvement," he said. "It depends on the area. Builders will compete in infill areas, in urban markets, because people like new."

"Where it's going to be hard is out in the suburbs," he said...

Click here to read the entire article.

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