FHFA’s 4Q HPI is out (translation.: fresh home price fodder!)
Christmas comes every quarter for home price gossips — I mean, professional trackers of housing markets like yours truly! Today is one: the Federal Housing Finance Administration released its quarterly house price indices.
They are great antidotes for the Stand & Poor’s/Case-Shiller indices, which are widely misreported and misunderstood. I’ll tease out regional changes in prices in my column in The Oklahoman/NewsOK.com this Saturday. (Go here for my recent columns and real estate news stories.)
So, enjoy — and here’s my most recent rant about the S&P/Case-Shiller reports.
–rm
Blanchard man blanches at Edmond home prices
A reader from Blanchard writes:
Compliments on a continuing good real estate section. It’s one of my favorite parts of the Sat Oklahoman. I’m not in the business, just a retired reader who enjoys keeping up with it, and following trends and making comparisons. I also enjoy many of the housing shows on HGTV.
I can’t get over how much Edmond now seems to be overpriced in the OKC Metro market. I know it’s all about “location”, but can’t understand the attraction since traffic and roads up that way both bad, and prices high. Why realtors like it I suppose. You can buy the same sq footage of home with more amenities for much less per sq ft in the south and southwest part of OKC.
When we bought our 2400 sq ft home new in spring of ‘04, our realtor at the time happened to do most of her business in Edmond and north OKC. She was blown away by what all we were getting for our money, and told my wife and I that if we were buying this house in Edmond it would be $20,000 more, and I am still seeing that to be true. We live on 1.25 acre wooded lot, about 5 miles west of Newcastle. Handy to everything and not near the traffic.
I also don’t think the southwest part of OKC metro gets near the real estate news coverage as dominant Edmond. Thanks for good work. Have a good weekend.
And I replied:
Many thanks! You know, people get what they pay for, and pay for what they want: I guess people want to live in Edmond bad enough to pay extra for it. And thanks for the nudge to get more southside coverage in! I’m hardly ever in that part of town unless I’m on my way to Texas, so it’s not always right in front of me. Thanks again for reading, and thanks for writing.
–rm
