2012 Wisconsin Real Estate and Economic Outlook Conference

Building A Housing Policy That Works.

This year’s Economic Outlook Conference will be held on June 1st, 2012 at the Fluno Center in Madison, WI. With budget battles looming and the presidential election already in full swing, 2012 is sure to have monumental implications for housing policy. Unfortunately, developing and advancing bipartisan solutions to fix the nation’s ongoing housing challenges have proven difficult in today’s highly polarized political environment. But housing is not only a basic human need—it is also a critical element of our economy. Now more than ever is the time to take a fresh look at this issue.

This conference will present varied perspectives and analysis on current issues while stimulating ideas on how to spur the housing market and get the U.S. economy back on track for solid growth. Those involved include experts from the public and private sectors who are involved in government, business, and academia—all of them are on the front lines of housing market research, policy, and practice.

Featured speakers for the event include:

Karl “Chip” Case: Chip is the Co-Founder of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index and Professor Emeritus of Economics at Wellesley College. He is author or co author of five books, and is renowned for his contributions to the economics of housing and public policy.

Lawrence Yun: Lawrence Yun is the Chief Economist & Senior Vice President of Research for the National Association of Realtors®. He has been listed among the top 10 economic forecasters in the country, and has been named among the 100 Most Influential Real Estate Leaders.

Please click here for the conference agenda and more information. To attend, you can register online here.

Are interest rates low enough to get the housing market moving again?

Yesterday, Madison's Channel 3000 News interviewed Professor Stephen Malpezzi on the outlook on the housing market given historically low mortgage interest rates. (Homebuyers Take Advantage Of Low Mortgage Rates, Aug 19, 2011 - video embedded below)

While the added incentive will likely pickup the housing market, experts don't expect it to be enough to pull the U.S. out of its slump."Getting employment back up is going to have a lot to do with getting that housing market problem healed and getting us back on track," said Steve Malpezzi, a business professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Professor Morris A. Davis was interviewed on Wisconsin Public Radio on Monday (Mortgage Rates Drop, But Getting a Good Rate Can Be Tough, Aug 15, 2011 + audio): while mortgage rates have reached record lows,

Morris Davis, Associate Professor in the Department of Real Estate at UW-Madison's School of Business, says there's a catch, "It's harder to get a mortgage than it used to be. Underwriting standards are much more strict than they were just a few years ago."

However, (from Channel 3000)

What Malpezzi does caution against right now is flipping a home. He said home values are still fluctuating and could even dip, so it would be difficult to buy a home, fix it up and sell it for a profit within a couple of years.

2011 Wisconsin Economic Outlook

The cover story to this month's Wisconsin REALTORS Association magazine is Stephen Malpezzi's economic outlook for the state for 2011. The recession, now "officially over", was not felt equally across the country; Wisconsin fared relatively better than some of the "really hard hit" markets in California, Nevada, Florida and others. "The national housing market has stabilized, but remains fragile," notes Malpezzi. "However, there is still potential risk from the defaults and foreclosures that much of the nation continues to experience."

What’s the Outlook for 2010 and Beyond?

The U.S. economy has a lot of inertia built into it; the good news this year is very similar to the good news from last year. GDP is growing, and with any luck, as firms exhaust their ability to squeeze more output from existing resources, employment growth will strengthen. Housing prices in Wisconsin, as elsewhere, have stopped their decline and appear to have stabilized. House prices are back in line with fundamentals, broadly speaking. We have done better than most states, though we’ve certainly had pockets of pain. The bad news is that a significant risk remains of downward overshooting, if we fail to successfully work through the foreclosure problem...We also need to keep a close eye on interest rates, and some of their fundamentals; for the long run, we need to get our fiscal house in order.

Click to read the full article and Malpezzi's recommendation for further reading.

For more from Wisconsin Real Estate faculty and their response to the economic crisis, visit our website.