June 2018 Veros ® Real Estate Solutions report also shows that the top 10 highest-appreciating markets continue to be concentrated in five western states

SANTA ANA, Calif., July 10, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Veros ® Real Estate Solutions (Veros), an award-winning industry leader in enterprise risk management, collateral valuation services, and predictive analytics, has released its second quarter 2018 VeroFORECAST SM , which predicts that over the next 12 months residential market values will appreciate at a national average of +4.4%, a slightly higher rate than predicted in the previous report.

Each quarter Veros releases a new  VeroFORECAST report, developed by projecting the impact of various key predictors on real estate values at four future time horizons: 6, 12, 18 and 24 months. The report released today, which covers the 12 months from June 1, 2018 through June 1, 2019, integrates data from 1,005 counties, 354 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), and 13,877 zip codes that cover 82% of the U.S. population.

“Washington State and Nevada occupy six of the ten highest-appreciating MSAs in the U.S. and the remaining four are in California, Oregon and Idaho,” said Eric Fox , VP of Statistical and Economic Modeling at Veros . “This is the 24th quarter in a row where this index has forecast overall appreciation. Interestingly, the metro markets that are projected to appreciate the most over the next 12 months in this VeroFORECAST release are also among the most populated, while the markets that are expected to depreciate most are all among the least populated. For example, the average population of the top 25 metros is 1.7 million and the average population of the bottom 25 metros is 318,000.”

The new report reconfirms what has been experienced over the last several years: high demand for housing and historically low housing supply remain the key determinants of where any given market is expected to be on the appreciation-depreciation spectrum. 

THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDES

There is also a geographical component to real estate appreciation predictions. Not only are the projected top ten trending U.S. markets, as determined in the current VeroFORECAST , concentrated in the West, but the ten that are predicted to depreciate slightly or remain the same, are in the East and South.

For the 12 months beginning June 1, 2018, Veros predicts all ten of the highest-appreciating MSAs and 21 of the top 25 markets will be in seven contiguous far west states, from Washington and Idaho in the north, down through Oregon and California, and east to Nevada, Utah and Colorado.

  1. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Washington        (+11.1%)
  2. Olympia, Washington                                     (+9.8%)
  3. Bremerton-Silverdale, Washington                (+9.8%)
  4. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA           (+9.5%)
  5. Carson City, NV                                              (+9.5%)

Rounding out the projected top 10 markets are Reno-Sparks, Nevada (+9.5%), Mount Vernon-Anacortes, Washington (+9.4%), Pocatello, Idaho (+9.4%), San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, California (+9.2%), and Eugene-Springfield, Oregon (+9.1%).

“There are several factors driving up home prices in the Seattle area, including a thriving economy and a lack of buildable land,” said Economist  Matthew Gardner , with Seattle-based  Windermere Real Estate . “There is also growing demand for housing thanks to the substantial in-migration of technology workers from the Bay Area who are relocating to Seattle because of the robust job market and relatively inexpensive home prices when compared to those in San Francisco,” Gardner concluded.

Despite migration to Seattle from California's Bay Area and Silicon Valley, the San Jose market is one of the top five markets for appreciation this quarter, ranked fourth at +9.5 percent.

“The San Jose market remains exceedingly strong with a supply of homes at an extremely low 1.0 months, while its population is continuing to grow steadily. Its unemployment is an extremely low 2.6%. The Silicon Valley continues to attract workers for high tech jobs, and there isn't enough housing to fill demand, making this one of the strongest markets in the country,” Fox said.  

Much like San Jose, this quarter’s fourth highest appreciating market Reno-Sparks is experiencing extremely low housing inventories in conjunction with rapidly growing population.

“For at least eight years now Reno-Sparks has been experiencing incredible growth, with an influx of companies in the technology space from California and other states,” said Craig King , COO, Chase International Real Estate . “Tesla is currently building a 14 million-plus square foot gigafactory here, which, upon completion, is expected to be the biggest building in the world. With so many people moving into the area from higher equity regions, there is a great deal of pressure on the housing market to catch up and builders are still under building. This phenomenon has been going on for at least 5 to 6 years now and we are still 20,000 housing units behind what’s needed,” King concluded.  

The supply of homes in Reno is 2.7 months and continues to fall. Combined with an unemployment rate of a low 3.8% and rapid population growth of 15%+, this is one of the forecast’s strongest markets in the country.  

MARKETS PROJECTED TO DEPRECIATE

Nearly one-half of the bottom 25 markets are in the northeastern states of New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, Maine, Pennsylvania and Maryland, with eight others in the deep south: Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi.

Among the ten MSAs projected to have the highest depreciation over the next 12 months, only three were in the previous VeroFORECAST bottom ten, and the rate of depreciation is significantly less. In the last report, Atlantic City was predicted to depreciate at nearly -3%, and it now is forecast to depreciate at -1.0%. Cumberland, Maryland-West Virginia MSA, which was not among the bottom ten MSAs in the last report, now has the worst forecast depreciation, albeit only -1.6%:

  1. Cumberland, MD-WV                                      (-1.6%)
  2. Farmington, NM                                               (-1.1%)
  3. Gettysburg, PA                                                 (-1.0%)
  4. Atlantic City-Hammonton, NJ                           (-1.0%)
  5. Peoria, IL                                                          (-0.7%)

The remaining metro areas in the bottom 10 range from a predicted -0.7% drop to no projected change through June 1, 2019: Fort Smith, AR-OK (-0.7%); Jackson, MS (-0.5%); Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT (-0.4%); Joplin, MO (-0.3%) and Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT (0.0%).  

THE VALUE OF VEROFORECASTS  

Businesses can license the reports for all areas they serve and use the valuation forecast models to gain competitive expertise at the metropolitan, county, and zip code level. Those designations are further stratified by property type and three price tiers at the county and zip code levels and are used to add greater granularity and forecast performance.

“The data in each VeroFORECAST will benefit any business with an interest in real estate,” said Veros President and CEO Darius Bozorgi . “This includes residential real estate professionals, mortgage originators and servicers, default management professionals, and capital markets firms, as well as investors, insurers and guarantors. Veros offers a proven service that drills down to single MSAs, counties and zip codes for an accurate view of what to expect in local markets. We have been delivering the most accurate forecast performance for over the past fifteen years. Our results are second to none.”

Real estate and mortgage professionals and those in the financial services sector who wish to receive either the complete quarterly reports or regional reports as they are released can subscribe. For more information email communications@veros.com  or call (866) 458-3767.

Additional forecasts and infographics for U.S. markets are available to the press for download and upon request. Visit Veros.com for the  VeroFORECAST Report.

About Veros Real Estate Solutions

Veros Real Estate Solutions, a proven leader in enterprise risk management and collateral valuation services, uniquely combines the power of predictive technology, data analytics and industry expertise to deliver advanced automated decisioning solutions. Veros products and services are optimizing millions of profitable decisions throughout the mortgage industry, from loan origination through servicing and securitization. Veros provides solutions to control risk and increase profits including automated valuations, fraud and risk detection, portfolio analysis, forecasting, and next-generation collateral risk management platforms. Veros is headquartered in Santa Ana, Calif. For more information, please visit  www.veros.com  or call (866) 458-3767.

About Eric Fox, VP of Statistical and Economic Modeling:

Eric Fox received his M.S. in Statistics and B.S. in Mathematics and Economics from Purdue University, and has 30 years of industrial experience in statistical and econometric modeling, probabilistic life methodology development, statistical training, probabilistic design software development, and probabilistic financial/competitive analysis.  Fox has published more than 20 technical papers on probabilistic and statistical methods.

Media Contact Darcy Patch VP of Marketing 714.415.6398 dpatch@veros.com