Housing, foreclosures seeing signs of recovery - San Bernardino ...

Two reports released Wednesday showed improved health for the housing market, even in long-struggling San Bernardino County.

Builders last month started construction on single-family houses and apartments at the fastest rate in more than four years, the Commerce Department said Wednesday, one of several promising details in the September report on home construction.

In a separate report on California, the foreclosure rate dropped to its lowest level since 2007, the early days of the housing market bust, according to DataQuick Information Systems. Statewide, that's a 31 percent drop in the number of defaults, and nearly a 22 percent drop in San Bernardino County.

Those involved in home sales in the region say the

San Bernardino County

2011: 5,504
2012: 4,308
Change: -21.7%

California

2011: 71,275
2012: 49,026
Change: -31.2%

Source: DataQuick Information Systems

numbers reflect a change in attitudes and sales that they've noticed this year.

"In the last couple of months there's been growing momentum in a positive direction," said Randall Lewis, executive vice president of the Upland-based Lewis Group of Cos.

The Lewis Group does business with several builders who have projects in the Inland Empire, and he said he's hearing from all of them and from customers that many feel the economy has hit bottom and has started to improve.

"A lot of customers think that now's a good time to get in on the recovery," Lewis said.

Home sales are up in much of the Inland Empire - especially Banning, Beaumont, Rancho Cucamonga and Corona - according to real estate agent Dan Walker,

and he expects other areas to catch up soon.

"Absolutely," said Walker, who's with Spellacy & Associates Realtors in San Bernardino. "In San Bernardino, particularly, there's not a lot of new construction, but I think we'll see more soon. I think that especially out in Fontana, we'll see a lot of that soon."

As for foreclosures, Walker said the decrease seems to be because banks are increasingly looking instead at cooperative short sales.

"Make the home available for showings, keep the house in a condition that it can be shown, water the lawn, that kind of thing," Walker said. "In many cases the banks will give the seller a reimbursement at closing if they do that. It can be a couple thousand dollars - sometimes it goes up higher but it causes a better spirit than before."

Lewis, like many analysts, says the pace of construction has accelerated steadily since about February and is likely to keep rising. Many attribute that to record-low mortgage rates, more stable home prices and a shortage of previously occupied homes for sale.

And just as perception led the market to crumble, perception is building it back up, Lewis said.

"In a lot of ways, the housing market is

With interest rates at a new low, people in the area have returned to the housing market, visiting places like this development in Fontana. (Micah Escamilla Correspondent)

self-fulfilling," he said.

Economists say home growth can lead to broader growth: More new homes could accelerate growth and help boost hiring, especially in areas like construction, home improvement and retailing. More homeowners lead to more people buying home furnishings.

The government's report Wednesday on home construction in September was filled with encouraging details.

Overall, the number of homes that were started increased 15 percent from August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 872,000. That's the fastest rate since July 2008.

Single-family homes, which made up more than two-thirds of the new construction, rose 11 percent to 603,000. That was also the quickest rate in four years. Apartment construction, which can be more volatile from month to month, rose 25.1 percent.

And applications for building permits, a sign of future construction, jumped nearly 12 percent to an annual rate of 894,000, another high point since July 2008.

The rate of new construction has surged more than 38 percent in the past 12 months.

Housing starts are now 82.5 percent above the annual rate of 478,000 in April 2009, the recession low. It's still well short of the 1.5 million annual rate that economists consider healthy. And it's far below the more than 2 million homes started in 2007 - the peak of the boom. But the steady upward trend appears likely to endure, analysts say.

"The housing market is improving, and there is no reason to think that this will not continue going forward," said Patrick Newport, U.S. economist at HIS Global Insight.

The surprisingly robust construction data helped push stocks modestly higher. And the prices of homebuilder stocks rose sharply.

The report came a day after the National Association of Home Builders said confidence among builders had reached a six-year high. The group's index has been rising over the past year.

There's still a scarcity of homes relative to demand - particularly in places like Redlands and Yucaipa - but even in San Bernardino home prices have risen for each of the past three months, Walker said.

"One challenge with that is appraisals are based on comparable sales in the last 6 months, so it will take a little while for comparables to catch up," he said. "A year ago, if something was on the market, you could take your time. Now buyers are hungry."

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact Ryan via email, by phone at 909-386-3916, or on Twitter @sbcitynow.

Source: http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_21796788?source=rss

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