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Metrostudy: Housing industry will start improving by mid-2009

The Bakersfield Californian | Thursday, May 8 2008 3:03 PM

Last Updated: Thursday, May 8 2008 3:09 PM

Some Bakersfield homebuilders and related housing industry professionals got a statistical snapshot of first-quarter market data Thursday.

The data comes from Metrostudy, a company that offers housing data, including counts of subdivision lots under construction, throughout California and markets such as Florida, Texas, Arizona and North Carolina.

Here are some highlights for Kern, Tulare, Kings and Fresno counties:

There are 5,398 homes in new construction inventory. Of those:

— 2,201 homes are under construction.

— 2,384 homes are finished and vacant; most are in Kern and Fresno counties. These lots are on paved streets that have curbs and gutters.

— 813 are model homes.

• That equates to about a seven-month supply across the four counties, and much of that inventory is from national builders, publicly traded companies that had to satisfy Wall Street’s high expectations.

• In Kern, there are nearly 1,000 finished, vacant homes.

• The company estimates it would take about three months for the housing market to consume Kern’s inventory.

Vacant lots

• In the four surveyed counties, there are 20,338 vacant developed lots.

• That’s nearly a 34-month supply.

As the market begins to pick up and housing starts increase, those supply timelines will decrease, said Greg Gross, director of Metrostudy’s Central California regional office.

Until things change, though, empty lots will linger.

Gross told the small audience that foreclosure rates will drive home prices lower. Similarly, excessive lot inventories will burden the regional market and push pricing down.

On the bright side, the company believes the housing industry will start to show signs of improvement by mid-2009.

Statewide, Gross said, the housing market started to slow down earlier than a lot of other places.

As a whole, California’s “been through the cycle longer ... the sooner we get out of it, the better we’ll be,” he said.