Updates on the Virginia Economy

Over the past few weeks the Roanoke College Institute for Policy and Opinion Research has released two of my reports regarding the Virginia economy: one on consumer sentiment and inflation expectations and one regarding the real estate market.

You can read each by using the links below. As you will see, sentiments in the Commonwealth are strong and households report rising incomes (which is in keeping with national results.) There is a sentiment disparity by party as shown in the graphic below (VAICS=Virginia Index of Consumer Sentiment.) This survey was conducted before the recent gasoline shortage.

In the real estate markets, inventories are falling resulting in rising home prices. In the graphic below for sale inventories = green bars, median list price = blue line (all data from www.zillow.com but graphic is my own.)

The real estate index varies considerably across the Commonwealth. The break even value for the index is zero where equal shares of respondents believe the current real estate market has improved over the last year as those who believe it has worsened. The figure below shows the strength in the Tidewater, Central Virginia, and the Tidewater particularly relative to Southwest Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley.

Read the full reports here: 

Consumer Sentiment and Inflation Expectations

Real Estate

Keep your sentiments up,

May 2015 Real Estate Index

My report on the real estate market in the Commonwealth came out this week. Several questions concerning the real estate market are included in the survey used to gather data for the consumer sentiment report. We (the amazing people in the Roanoke College PR department) try to spread the releases out by about a week.

Virginians are generally optimistic about the current and future real estate markets. An interesting find is that buyers in Southwest VA are quite positive, likely due to a belief of housing surpluses from departing Norfolk Southern employees.

Black line indicates "robust" market

You can read the report here. The Roanoke Times wrote an article about the report (found here) and I interviewed with WVTF.

Virginia Real Estate Index Report is here

This week the Roanoke College Institute for Policy and Opinion Research released my Real Estate Index Report for the first quarter of 2015.

Overall the market is looking strong, with sellers more optimistic about the future. The table below shows the February 2015 index values for Virginia. An index value greater than zero means that more people are optimistic than pessimistic.

Virginia Real Estate Indexes 

You can read the report here and/or watch an interview I did for WDBJ7 below.

Consumers optimistic about 2015 real estate market

August Real Estate Index: The market is strong

Each quarter, in addition to the Consumer Sentiment and Price Expectations Report, I also produce the Real Estate Index using the methodology developed by the Sienna College Research Institute.

The figure below illustrates views on the real estate market in Virginia.

A measure of zero indicates an equal share of respondents feeling optimistic as those who feel pessimistic about the housing market. Perceptions of the market remain strong since the second quarter of 2014 with the only loss occurring in beliefs about buying in the next year. The Fed is likely going to raise rates in 2015 which is a potential determinant of the loss in optimism. 

You can read the entire report here.

The next set of reports will be released in November,