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The Black Hills Market Watch gives you daily, weekly and monthly comprehensive analyses of the current real estate market, the historical trends and news that affects your real estate decisions. We also try to provide a rich reference-library collection of checklists, guidelines and tips, for making the most of the properties you buy or sell. We hope you'll enjoy it and offer feedback.

This includes key local market indicators such as median price of sold properties, median price of un-sold properties, days-on-market, price reductions, sales per month, number of currently pending sales, and months of inventory on hand (how long it would take to sell all the currently unsold properties at current rates of sales).

Black Hills Market Watch also tracks key national market indicators such as Federal Housing Price Index, the Pending Home Sales Index, Unemployment Index, GDP growth, Consumer Confidence Index, inflation, Consumer Savings Rate, and mortgage rates.

The Black Hills Market Watch also analyzes the implications of public policy issues that impact local real estate markets, such as stimulus-monies, IRS/Tax Code rules, loan guarantees, Federal Reserve policy, foreclosure regulation, low-income assistance, mortgage financing criteria, and inheritance/wealth-taxes. This includes actions by Federal regulatory and statutory agencies, quasi-governmental financing institutions, Rural Development, South Dakota Housing Development Authority, mortgage lenders, appraisal services, and others.

Finally, the Black Hills Market Watch monitors and analyzes consumers (real estate buyers and sellers), including demographics, and behaviors.

Your many suggestions and requests have proven invaluable in developing a Black Hills Market Watch that addresses the questions most important to consumers, lenders, and real estate agents. Please continue to offer your ideas and make requests via the Comments box below each article.

All information on this site is (C) 2009 Black Hills Market Watch. When you use or cite information from this web site please include this exact phrase:
"Source: www.BlackHillsMarketWatch.com".

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH: WHITE HOUSE COUNCIL ON WOMEN AND GIRLS TO HOST WOMEN IN FINANCES SYMPOSIUM

This is a great idea. Given the mess in our nation’s mortgage markets, we could sure use some more high caliber leadership in financial policy. From my own experiences, women have provided some of the most proficient and professional real estate financing services. Among the many senior finance officers I have worked closely with, many of the best were the women. My own daughter is a business consultant in a related area.

Often these days, couples are relying on the woman’s higher credit rating to help reduce mortgage interest and the monthly house payment. When couples buy real estate, the woman often contributes more of the financing savvy and real estate acumen. I am very glad to see the Administration fostering a more inviting environment for young ladies to pursue a career in finance. My wife is involved in a Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program for young ladies wanting to pursue a science career, and it works. Hopefully this Obama Council on Women and Girls will help open more doors for women professionals, and prepare more young ladies to walk through them.

Here is the official announcement:

“On Monday, March 29, 2010, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, in partnership with The White House Council on Women and Girls, will convene a Women in Finance Symposium in celebration of Women's History Month. The symposium will bring together senior administration officials, private sector leaders, university presidents and women entering the field for a series of panel discussions to recognize the contributions of women and to discuss the best means to foster success among future generations of women in the public and private finance sectors.”

More information can be found at:

http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/tg613.htm

Homestar Energy Efficiency Retrofit Program

From the White House:  President Obama has announced the initiatives for HOMESTAR, a program that offers incentives for people to make their homes more energy-efficient.  According to Jetson Green, "The HOMESTAR program, first and foremost, has been designed to help three groups at the same time.  It'll help homeowners improve their real property and use less energy.  It'll help construction workers find projects and employment.  It'll help manufacturers and vendors sell green products. 

Here's more, from President Obama's web site.  Homeowners who make investments for energy-efficiency in their homes will be eligible to receive:

• Direct rebates for energy-saving investments
• 50 percent rebates for the cost of each upgrade up to $1500
• Rebates up to $3000 for those who choose to retrofit their whole homes
• Guaranteed quality installations through quality assurance providers who would conduct field audits after work is completed
• Support for financing through State and local governments.

MORE "GREENWASHING" IN THE NEWS

"Greenwashing" refers to the rampant and exagerated loose advertising claims about anything "green."  Oddly, in today's world of heightened legitimate interest in green homes, green living and green products, no Federal or industry group enforces rules against "greenwashing."  Caveat Emptor.  We're on our own. 

Until now.  ABC News recently ran a fine background story on the topic of greenwashing and where to find help identifying it, and thereby how to hold manufacturers and homebuilders to meaningful facts instead of puffery.  Scot Case of TerraChoice did a fine job of providing solid facts and helpful tips for us consumers on how to detect, measure, and circumvent greenwashing.

We wrote about greenwashing in real estate here a few months ago in regard to the growing volume of whatever-sells advertising claims made by some homebuilders.  New-home sales is the hardest hit segment of our otherwise strong real estate market in Rapid City and the Black Hills.  It's tempting for a new-home builder to give in to the temptations of implying that their homes achieve some sort of green standard. Whatever sells...even though recent South Dakota State law (Senate Bill 64, 2009) requires builders to provide an Energy Efficiency Disclosure Statement, declaring what is so green about their homes.

So here's a tip.  If you are placing value on the green systems or features that are engineered in to the new home you are buying, you may want to engage an independent, highly trained engineer to help interpret the real facts or to project the real savings on utilities you can expect.  It's not rocket science.

(DISCLOSURE:  Lee Alley, Chief Editor of this Hills Watch blog, is a licensed real estate agent and a former physicist and university professor, with a Ph.D. in engineering...and strong devotion to genuine green living.)

WE SOUTH DAKOTANS NEAR BEST IN MANAGING OUR CREDIT CARD DEBT

Transunion reports today that South Dakota has one of the lowest credit card delinquincy rates in the country.  Nevada was highest at near 2%, while South Dakota was second lowest at about 0.7%.

This probably says something about how we manage debts and pay them off, in general.  Which probably also helps expain why our home prices are holding relatively steady while the rest of the U.S. market goes on roller coaster real estate thrill rides.

WHAT HOUSING CRISIS? SOUTH DAKOTA 2ND LOWEST MORTGAGE DELINQUENCY RATE IN U.S.

As we reported here on Black Hills mortgage delinquincy rates last quarter, our mortgage delinquincies continued this quarter at near the lowest in the entire country according to Transunion.  If anyone still dreams that real estate in the Black Hills is for bottom-fishing, this should be a wake up call.  

Our volume of new listings and unsold inventory is way down.  Foreclosures in the Black Hills are near the lowest in the entire nation.  But for the lower-volume market we do have, prices remains quite strong when compared to the rest of the U.S.

We won't belabor the point.  It's already been made.  Rapid City real estate is consistently one of the strongest in the U.S. during this so-called downturn.  We'll just revel in the sweet feel of our unique market for real estate investments and sales.

In fact, with interest rates near the lowest in many years, highly motivated sellers, and some of the finest investment property in the United States just waiting for you to move...this might be "the time to act."

If you have questions or opinions, please let us know.

12-POINT GUIDE TO THE -TWO- EXTENDED HOMEBUYER TAX CREDITS

It just got better and also more complicated.  On November 6 President Obama signed the Extended Homebuyer Tax Credit.  The November 30 deadline is gone.  The $8,000 cash incentive for first-time buyers has been extended to next year.  Congress even added a $6,500 credit for current and former owners to buy again. 

This new program is considerably more complicated because the number of eligibility criteria for both you and for the home you purchase, have increased.  There are also many more policy guidances, to cover various scenarios for your income, purchase type (e.g., contract for deed), your relationship with the seller (brother?) or with a co-signer (parent?).  It would be great to summarize it here, but it's just too extensive and complex now to synthesize to a few paragraphs.  In fact, even the IRS hasn't even figured it out yet.  As of this writing, the online IRS description of the extended homebuyer tax credit simply says "more to be added soon."  So we'll just advise you to get professional assistance, starting with a realtor, mortgage lender or tax adviser.

Don't get too excited about the $6,500 repeat-homebuyer aspect just yet, though.  You must have lived in your current principal residence at least five of the past eight years.  That's right.  A whole bunch of Americans haven't lived in one home for five years, ever, and never will.  One wonders if this exclusion was a way for Congress to announce the new goodie-giveaway program without it actually costing so much.  Or perhaps they intended this five year limit, aligned next to the first-time critiera, might be intended to result in equal numbers of takers for each of the two programs. 

Still, here are some very helpful overviews:

• 
  
  "Home Buyer Tax Credits" on the web site http://www.federalhousingtaxcredit.com, provided by the National Association of Home Builders
  
• 
  
  "Homebuyer Tax Credit" Issue Brief, provided by the National Association of Realtors
  
  
  
  
• 
  
  "Homebuyer Tax Credit", provided by the IRS (but as of this posting date, the IRS site simply addresses the first-time home buyer tax credit, and says "more later" will come about the repeat-owner homebuyer tax credit.
  
  
  

But please be careful what you read online.  We have seen one particular detailed description of the program, claiming IRS policies on the homebuyer tax credit, posted and re-posted on dozens if not hundreds of blogs all over the country by blog authors who somehow forgot to give credit from where they copied the entire blog post.  That means you can't know who was some 7th grader who may have written the original post as a hoax.  That is one reason we are not trying to explain it here.  If the IRS doesn't yet know the IRS policies, how would we?  Be sure you go right to the source (e.g., IRS) for the only real dependable source of information. 

And we wait...