Oklahoma City
didn't receive the 'recession' memo
By Richard Mize
Real Estate
Editor, The Daily Oklahoman
Nothing
ever hit my e-mail as fast as this week's
Forbes.com's story calling Oklahoma City the
most recession-proof city in the country.
Individual builders, mortgage lenders,
Realtors and trade groups made dang sure to
get it in front of me.
And we at The Oklahoman made dang sure to
get the good news out, again, plus
explanation and reaction from housing,
energy, agriculture and other sectors that
are contributing to our good times.
If you missed the news, you must be dead.
Allow me to be your, um, personal medium.
Forbes.com reported: "Take Oklahoma City,
Okla. With falling unemployment, one of the
country's strongest housing markets, and
solid growth in agriculture, energy and
manufacturing, it looks best positioned
among the nation's largest metropolitan
areas to ride out the current crisis.”
Forbes.com continued: "Did someone say
something about a recession? ... Oklahoma
City might not have received the recession
memo. ... Booming valuations of Oklahoma
City's largest companies, like Devon Energy
and Chesapeake Energy, suggest the energy
sector is the right place to be.”
And that's why the housing market, in
Oklahoma, is the right place to be.
Take home values. Citing figures from the
National Association of Realtors, Forbes.com
reported that the median home price here
increased 8.2 percent from the fourth
quarter of 2006 to the fourth quarter of
2007.
Not news. But now maybe people will take
seriously those of us who have worked to
blow away scary national headlines with the
ammunition of actual local statistics.
We can hope.
We're
hoarse, those of us who've been hollering
"NOT HERE!” after every bad-news national
story, and "LOOK HERE!” while waving sheets
of local numbers every time somebody rolls
out some more dismal data on the "national
housing market” when no such dang thing
exists.
Look down the street. Look across town.
That's the real estate market. That's what
"local, local, local” means. And while sales
have slowed at the top end and the low end
of the market, in the middle where most of
us live homes are still moving and prices
are still firm.
Caleb McCaleb, immediate past president of
the Central Oklahoma Home Builders
Association, told me that the Forbes.com
story reported the kinds of things he's been
hearing about Oklahoma City from the
national home-building industry.
"I just came home from Washington D.C., this
past weekend on a trip to the National
Association of Home Builders. This article
reaffirms what (an association economist)
described for the Oklahoma City market,” he
said. "The other factors that the economist
stressed was how low our exposure has been
to the subprime mortgage debacle and
investor foreclosure crisis.
"We were educated on boom-and-bust cycles in
the 1980s, and this market has been cautious
ever since. We just need to keep our eyes on
the ball and focus on the game.”
Amen.
Dawn
Kennedy, executive officer for the Oklahoma
City Metro Association of Realtors, said
Realtors could take some of the credit for
Oklahoma City being "recession-proof.”
"The
association's commitment to education has a
direct impact on the knowledge and
professionalism of its members. Our members
are educated professionals that have avoided
the pitfalls of an overheated market and in
doing so have protected the economy and home
values of Oklahoma City residents,” she
said.
Fair
assessment. Lots of Realtors who got in
while the getting was good are long gone
because they couldn't cut it in a normal
market such as we have now in Oklahoma City.
Lender
Scott Senner with First Commercial Bank said
there are some negatives in our market but
they have to do with national credit
sources, not local lending and values.
"The only
consistent negative issue that I have been
seeing is that lower-credit-score borrowers
are not able to get financing right now,” he
said.
That's a
negative for some borrowers, but healthy for
a market that wants to stay strong.
Click this link to
see this article on NewsOK.com:
http://newsok.com/article/keyword/3238329/
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