Some intersting notes
Americans changed residences less often last year than at any time since the Census Bureau began keeping track in 1948, the latest sign of how the recession and falling house prices are keeping more people in place.
“We are normally thought of as a country on the move, but now all levels of migration have almost come to standstill,” said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. “People are just staying put.”
Census press release—the national mover rate was 11.9% last year, meaning 11.9% of the people lived in a different dwelling than they did the year before. That was down from 13.2% in 2007. In total, about 35 million people moved last year, down from about 39 million in 2007.
The breadth of the recession has exacerbated the slowdown. Unemployment has risen in every state, and fewer jobs in almost every community mean fewer people are moving for work. Job losses have continued through this year, and many economists expect that the national unemployment rate, currently at 8.5%, to hit double digits by the end of the recession.
The American Moving and Storage Association said the number of people changing residences had been dropping for four years and fell 17.7 percent from 2007 to 2008. The first quarter of 2009 is likely to be even worse, the trade group said.
Jed Smith, a research director for the National Association of Realtors, said that on average it took a homeowner 10.5 months to sell a house in 2008 compared with 8.9 months in 2007.
Existing-home sales — including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops — declined 3.0 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate(1) of 4.57 million units in March from a downwardly revised level of 4.71 million in February, and were 7.1 percent lower than the 4.92 million-unit pace in March 2008.
Although prices rose from February to March, the national median existing-home price (2) for all housing types was $175,200, down 12.4 percent from March 2008. The price increase from February to March was 4.2 percent, which is much higher than the typical 1.8 percent seasonal increase between those two months. Distressed properties, which accounted for just over half of all transactions in March, typically are selling for 20 percent less than traditional homes.
Moving rates decline as people grow older: between March 1997 and March 1998, only 4 percent of those 65 and over moved while one-third of people ages 20 to 29 years old moved the highest rate of all age groups.
Of the 43 million movers, 27.1 million moved within the same county, 7.9 million moved to another county in the same state and 6.4 million took up residence in a different state. Additionally, during that one-year period about 1.2 million people moved to the United States from abroad.
Non-Hispanic Whites had lower overall rates of moving (14.5 percent) than African Americans or Asians and Pacific Islanders (about 19 percent for each group). People of Hispanic origin, who may be of any race, had the highest rate of moving (21.2 percent).
One-third of America’s renters moved between March 1997 and March 1998. In contrast, only 8.2 percent of homeowners moved during that time.
The Northeast had the lowest overall moving rate (11.5 percent) well below the national rate of 16.0 percent followed by the Midwest (14.7 percent), the South (17.2 percent), and the West (19.4 percent)
Other highlights from the report, available on the Internet at
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/migrate.html, include:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124042434548044425.html
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/National-Association-Of-Realtors-978880.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/us/23census.html?_r=1&hp
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