Real Estate Values: The Outlook for 2014

If there is one question that homeowners and prospective shoppers have in common as we enter the New Year, it’s about the direction of real estate values in and around the San Gabriel Valley in 2014. Small wonder: the financial market meltdown of the last decade had such a profound impact on all forms of real estate that it still has many people looking nervously over their shoulders. How likely is another tumble in the coming 12 months? Will real estate values continue to rise? Knowing the answer could make a big difference to anyone planning to buy or sell a home this year.

Of course, absolute certainty on that score is not possible for anyone without a time machine in their basement. But, as we look back over last year, we might gain a little bit more confidence by hearing from the experts who got it right in 2013.

Foremost among them was Dr. Lawrence Yun, the chief economist of the National Association of REALTORS®. Last year, he was dead-on.

Dr. Yun is calling for a continued rise in prices—pretty much in line with the past year’s gains. To compensate for expected mortgage interest rate gains—the likely effect of the Federal Reserve’s easing of policies that fueled 2013’s financial markets—he suspects that lending institutions will ease borrowing strictures. That’s something we can all applaud! Keep in mind, however, that new financial reforms establish new requirements that govern banks and lenders, which will mean more documentation to prove a borrower’s ability to repay their mortgage

Overall, if local real estate values in 2014 follow the NAR’s national prognostications, we would expect real estate value increases either like the Wall Street Journal’s quoted prediction of 6%, or of Dr. Yun’s 5%. Either would not be surprising, given last year’s real estate values numbers. What the NAR experts and the Journal also agree upon is a flattening of residential housing sales volume in line with 2013 levels.

How much credence can we give to what the seers predict? Perhaps a little more than usual. “The NAR forecast could be viewed as restrained in light of the housing market’s gains in the past two years,” says the Journal; and “…other 2014 forecasts are fairly close to Mr. Yun’s predictions.”