McMaken on home ownership rates.

Randal O'Toole kindly quoted me in his book American Nightmare: How Government Undermines the Dream of Homeownership.  On page 2: 

“Homeownership has let us down,” said Time magazine. “The dark side of homeownership is now all too apparent: foreclosures and walkaways, neighbothoods plagued by abandoned properties and plummeting home values, a nation in which families have $6 trillion less in housing wealth than they did just threee years ago.” When the Census Bureau reported American homeownership rates had fallen from 69 percent in 2004 to 65 percent in 2010, housing economist Ryan McMaken responded that “the present rate needs to drop even more.” 

To put it in context, here's the article he's quoting.

Local CBS interview this week

The latest from the local CBS affiliate (CBS4):

Snip: 

“We know that vacancy in single family rentals is very, very low, two percent or so. Vacancy in apartments is about 4.3 percent. Those are very low levels,” said McMaken.

That is one factor putting pressure on housing demand. Another is cost.
“Colorado is consistently in the top three of the places college grads say they want to move. People are moving here. They’re staying here. Because where else are they going to go?” said McMaken.

Fox31 Clip: Multifamily Construction

From last weekend:

DENVER — This year in Denver, more than three thousand building permits have been issued to developers putting up apartment buildings, which in turn means there are thousands of construction jobs which need to be filled by skilled workers.

“Construction jobs didn’t bounce back after the initial drop off following the financial crisis, we had just seen a long steady decline that happened from 2007 really until very recently when we started to see construction jobs tick back up,” said state housing expert, Ryan McMaken. “But if job growth were really good, we’d probably be seeing far more demand that we’re seeing now.”

Latest Scholarly Publication

I'm a contributor to the upcoming Encyclopedia of Modern Political Thought, coming soon from SAGE Publications.

I'll be providing the entry on Conservatism.

At $350.00 per multi-volume set, you'll be needing a copy for your night stand.

More clippings from today and yesterday

Boulder County, state foreclosure filings on pace for lowest year since 2006(Daily Camera)

"Completed foreclosures continue to head down at a steady pace," said Ryan McMaken, economist for the Colorado Division of Housing. "As home sales and home prices, rise, it's getting a little easier to avoid that final foreclosure sale through a short sale or even a conventional sale." Weissmann noted that Boulder County saw just six such sales last week while many other Colorado counties are recording double digit auction sales each week.

County foreclosure sales see big drop(Ft. Collins Coloradoan)

“Larimer County continues to see improvement in employment, foreclosures, home sales, vacancies and rents (from an owners’ perspective),” said Ryan McMaken, economist for the Colorado Division of Housing. “Looking at all of that and the fact that Fort Collins/Loveland has low unemployment, it’s not terribly surprising that the foreclosure situation continues to improve.”

Fewer homes auctioned off(Pueblo Chieftain)

Ryan McMaken says foreclosure sales fell nearly 24 percent in the first three quarters of 2012, compared with the same period last year. There were about 12,000 foreclosure auction sales through September, down from 15,000 in the first nine months of 2011, the agency said. 

Latest foreclosure data release, Nov. 8

I released the state's foreclosure data today.

9News picked it up:

Also, The Den Post:

Foreclosure sales in Colorado down 23.6 percent so far this year  

Foreclosure auction sales through September were 11,898 compared to 15,565 in the first nine months of 2011."Completed foreclosures continue to head down at a steady pace," said Ryan McMaken, economist for the Colorado Division of Housing. "As home sales and home prices, rise, it's getting a little easier to avoid that final foreclosure sale through a short sale or even a conventional sale."

October 30, 2012 clippings

Denver Post: Denver metro apartment vacancies fall; rents rise

Ryan McMaken, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Housing, said that a big factor for the low vacancy rate is that apartment construction hasn't kept up with demand. Earlier in the decade people were leaving apartments because they thought they could afford a home. As a result, demand for apartments decreased and little apartment construction happened.

Now, said McMaken, apartments are being built, but still not nearly enough to keep up with household formations among young people along with migration into the city.

Through Sept. 10 of this year, 1,644 apartment units have been added to the market. That compares to 1,146 in all of 2011 and just 498 in 2010.
...
McMaken said that the lowest vacancy rates recorded in the past 30 years were 3.6 percent in both the third quarter of 1982 and the third quarter of 1994 .

 Boulder County Business Report: Apartment vacancy rate low, rents high

"The average rent has grown year over year in every quarter for the past two and a half years, and it has recently begun to accelerate." Colorado Division of Housing spokesman Ryan McMaken said in the release. "The rent growth we're now seeing is starting to look like what we experienced in the days of the dot-com boom."

Denver Business Journal: Denver apartment vacancy rate hits 12-year low

“The average rent has grown year over year in every quarter for the past two and a half years, and it has recently begun to accelerate,” Ryan McMaken, Division of Housing spokesman, said in a statement. “The rent growth we’re now seeing is starting to look like what we experienced in the days of the dot-com boom.”