“We think there’s a lot more home price appreciation to go,” Blackstone President Tony James said at a Dec. 5 conference in New York sponsored by Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Shadow Inventory
Homes that were seriously delinquent, in the foreclosure process and not yet listed for sale, known as the shadow inventory, shrank 12 percent in the 12 months through October to 2.3 million units, CoreLogic reported Jan. 2.
“Given the long foreclosure timelines in many states, the current shadow inventory stock represents little immediate threat to a significant swing in housing market supply,” Mark Fleming, CoreLogic’s chief economist, said in a statement. “Investor demand will help to absorb the already foreclosed and REO properties in the shadow inventory in 2013.”
Builders such as New Home’s Webb are seeing a lot of interest from prospective buyers. More than 6,500 people visited Lambert Ranch’s model homes on opening weekend in May, and high traffic continues from homeseekers with resources to buy, Webb said.
Shoppers will soon have more options. In Orange County, California, where New Home Co. is based, two dozen subdivisions are opening this year, the most since 2006, Webb said.
Webb, a homebuilder for 25 years, co-founded the New Home Co. in 2009 after his previous company, John Laing Homes, went through bankruptcy liquidation. Just three years earlier, as the housing prices were about to crash, John Laing was sold for $1.05 billion to Emaar Properties PJSC, a Dubai-based developer.
“We’re not looking for some crazy boom,” Webb said. “We’d just like to see consistent sales and modest price appreciation.”