the average price of houses sold in the Triad peaked at more than $205,000.
Ten months later, the nation would plunge into a prolonged recession from which the local housing market
— and the economy at large — has yet to recover.
Evidence can be seen in the latest housing figures,
which show that the average sale price in February 2011 had dropped to just over $156,000.
That’s a decline of nearly $49,000, or 24 percent,
and the lowest average in more than 13 years.
The number of sales in the Triad has plunged as well,
dropping nearly 48 percent in the past 6 1/2 years.
Economists say the situation may get worse before it gets better.
“We’ve been through a bad downturn,” said Don Jud,
a professor emeritus at UNCG’s Bryan School of Business
...“We are not certain that we are at the bottom yet.”
Housing numbers for Guilford County are just as bleak as those in the Triad.
In September, housing prices in the county fell below $152,000,
the lowest average since Jud began collecting data in 1997.
That represents a decline of more than $45,000, or 23 percent,
in the past four years.
If most Guilford County residential real estate
has fallen below the last assessment values
and most commercial property values
have experienced what may be somewhere between 30 to 40% declines,
will residential homeowners have to overcompensate
for the lost tax revenue from commercial properties
after reassessment occurs in 2012?
In addition, since November 2004,
the number of houses sold in the county has dropped nearly 45 percent.
...Among houses priced more than $500,000, the slump is particularly acute.
Across the Triad, Jud said, there’s more than a 40-month supply sitting on the market.
If many of what was assessed between $450,000 and $1,500,000
from 2004 through 2012
may be assessed between $275,000 and $850,000 in 2012,
while those in the middle remained relatively the same,
how much is who going to have to make up what difference?
Longtime real estate agents say they’ve never encountered such a housing slump locally.
...Locally, the housing market experienced “a severe slump,” Jud said, rather than a crash.
...Part of that decline can be attributed to the area’s weak labor market.
Data show that as employment rates fell in the Triad, so did housing prices.
Should Guilford County borrow hundreds of millions as our tax base falls?
“Employment is always a driver,” Jud said. “We have had one of the weakest employment markets of any around the country.”
$337.38 million that may not need borrowing
as federal and state subsidies fall and local tax revenues drop?
...the Greensboro-High Point metro area
has about the same number of jobs today (315,895) as it had in 1996 (314,966)."
Donald
