We have had, in my view, a seven-to-nine-year seller's market in the U.P. ... (A higher interest rate) catches us with the edge of the brush whether this market needs cooling off or not. ... For that reason I am expecting next year to be, if not a down year, a flat year. ... At some point in time, a year out, two years out, three years out, people who need to sell, for whatever reason, may become more willing to discount the price somewhat. But I think historically there's not much of an up or down, it's more of a staircase kind of thing where it's steadily up and then flat and then steadily up, and my view is that we're probably coming into a flat period.
Dick Huey, Owner
Huey Real Estate—Marquette, Mich.
My father has been doing this in the same place for 45 years, and in the late '70s when the interest rates were kind of high there was like a plateau, but really prices didn't slide backwards, and I'm thinking we may have a little bit of a plateau or maybe not as wild an increase as we've had, but being that the supply is so short compared to the demand, I don't see the bubble bursting, if that's what you're asking. ... There's just too much demand and there's never enough good lake property to sell.
Jim Tiffany, Owner
Tiffany Appraisal—Hayward, Wis.
We're expecting this year that home values will appreciate near 7 percent through the course of this year, but we are seeing that the pace of home price appreciation is slowing down, and we expect that the pace will continue to slow down and settle somewhere in that 4 percent to 6 percent range over the next few years. We do expect prices to stay flat between now and next March, and that is a seasonal norm for our region. And then we expect prices to begin to rise again next March, and by year-end next year we'll probably see home price appreciation somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 percent.
Mark Allen, Chief Executive Officer
Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors—Minneapolis, Minn.
Well, if you're talking about the home prices, we're looking for an upswing in our community. We've got an upswing in the oil activity. We're in the heart of the Williston (oil) Basin, so home prices to us, all indications are that it's strong, and no reason for it to back off a lot. Building costs keep going up, and we've got a real shortage of housing.
Roger Cymbaluk, Principal/Broker
Basin Realtors—Williston, N.D.
I expect prices within 12 months in Sioux Falls, for new construction, to be 15 percent to 20 percent higher, and I expect that resales are going to be 10 percent higher. ... Six months from now the typical house is going to cost 30 percent more to build. Some of this might roll back some, but the increases in brick, sheetrock, lumber and all that stuff, because of Katrina and all the other stuff, the excuses they use, everything is just going out of sight.
Don Dunham, Owner
Dunham Companies—Sioux Falls, S.D.
Median home sale prices for the state of Montana over the past seven years have grown at an average rate of 8.6 percent per year, with a 13 percent annual average over the last two years. In the face of rising interest rates, the rate of growth should slow slightly back toward the longer-term average. Some of the most significant growth regionally can be seen in Gallatin and Flathead counties with average annual growth in median homes sale prices for the last two years for Gallatin reaching 32 percent and Flathead 16 percent.
Kristen Wagner, Real Estate Researcher
Center for Applied Economic Research
Montana State University—Billings, Mont.
