Will your new golf home go up in value? Market forecasts available at a discount

     Bloodied and bruised by the housing market recession, who among us is ready to plunk down a good chunk of our net worth for a retirement home or vacation home without a good idea of where prices might be heading?  And who wouldn’t spend just $75 -– about .00025% of the cost of a $300,000 home -- for a well-reasoned prediction about price trends in our target markets.

        Local Market Monitor and its predecessor firms have supplied banks, investors, real estate companies and homebuilders with analyses and

predictions about housing prices for more than 20 years.  The service’s in-depth reports focus on 315 U.S. metro markets and employ census and other government-reported data to forecast housing price trends.  The company’s founder, Ingo Winzer, was one of the relatively few economists in 2005 to warn that many housing markets in the U.S. were overpriced.  He often appears on television business shows and is quoted in news articles about the housing market.

        Local Market Monitor also makes its reports available to individuals, and its information, analysis and forecasts about local price trends can be especially invaluable for those of us trying to decide, say, between Myrtle Beach and Wilmington or Chapel Hill and Charlottesville.  Local Market Monitor looks especially hard at market-by-market population trends and job statistics, two key predictors of home prices, although other factors, such as the overall inventory of homes for sale in a particular area, also factor into the forecasts.  The service’s market reports include easy-to-follow charts and analyst commentary.

        Local Market Monitor’s conclusions about Myrtle Beach were an

eye-opener for me.  As a vacation homeowner in the Grand Strand area and a frequent visitor, I can report that the Myrtle Beach media, my neighbors, local golf course operators –- you name it –- seem a bit depressed about the housing market in the area.  In some cases, prices are off 40% from their pre-recession highs, and it is tough for any Myrtle Beach resident to envision a significant turnaround on the horizon.

        Yet, based on its data and analysis, Local Market Monitor forecasts that home prices will increase an average 7% in the Myrtle Beach area from 2013 to 2014 based on what the service’s analysts see in terms of population and job trends (e.g. job growth in March ’11 was the best since December ’06).  Frankly, I trust Local Market Monitor’s numbers more than I do my own anecdotal observations (and my friends’ and neighbors’ pessimism).

        You can look through a sample market report (for Miami/Miami Beach) at Local Market Monitor’s web site, LocalMarketMonitor.com.  If you like what you see, LMM is offering a special 25% discount on its reports and subscriptions to readers of Golf Community Reviews.  Just enter the special coupon code “golf” (don’t use the quote marks) and sign up for either a one-market report ($99 before the discount) or a full-year subscription for monthly updated reports on one market ($297 before the discount).  If you would like to sign up for a full subscription to all 315 markets that LMM covers, please contact COO Carolyn Beggs toll free at 800-881-8653, extension 105.