Posts Tagged ‘meservier & associates’

Search the Maine MLS for all Maine properties for sale.

Find Homes for sale, condo’s, land, waterfront, lakeside, mulitfamily, and commercial properties. Brought to you by: Meservier & Associates of Keller Williams Realty Mid Maine

Searches can be found at most of our family of websites below.

Be sure to check out our main website at:

• Meservier.com

…and our sister websites at:

• HowToBuyAHomeInMaine.com
• MaineRealEstateShortSales.com
• MaineRealEstateExperts.com
• MaineRealEstate.MOBI
• MaineWaterfrontRental.com

…and our Maine Community Blog Sites at:

• AuburnMaineHomesForSale.com
• LewistonMaineHomesForSale.com
• GrayMaineHomes.com
• NewGloucesterMaineHomes.com
• BuckfieldMaineHomes.com
• Maine-Waterfront-RealEstate.com
• PolandMaineHomes.com
• TurnerMaineHomes.com

I was just reviewing some information from “The State of the Nation’s Housing,” a report issued each year by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. It is an overview of the U.S. housing market including analyses of market forces, demographic drivers, rental housing, and challenges for the future.

Something in the report caught my eye: A contributing factor to lower household growth was a drop in household headship rates caused by “doubling up.” In other words, some people were forced into combining households to save money during difficult financial times, possibly due to loss of their home or by foreclosure. Household headship rates for all age groups have also fallen since 2005, especially among those under age 35.

Of course, what is going to happen to headship rates in the future remains uncertain. If economic conditions and the foreclosure crisis do not improve, rates may continue to fall. But given the improved affordability conditions, employed workers may soon form households and thus boost headship rates. In most cases, doubling up is only a temporary solution for people — they will eventually prefer to find their own places to live.

The good news, according to the Joint Center, is that the “echo-boom” generation — those born between 1986 and 2005 — will have a tremendous impact on starter homes over the next 15 years. The echo-boom generation, currently at 80.8 million, is even larger than the baby-boom generation. It is projected to grow to 92.9 million by 2025. Meanwhile, baby boomers will boost demand for senior housing.

For household formation to return to normal rates, improvement in the unemployment rate is critical. One study estimates that if unemployment rates fall by a little more than 2 percentage points by the end of 2012, household formation would increase by about 2 percentage points from current levels by 2012.* That would mean that by 2012, normal rates of household formation should come back — roughly around 1 to 1.5 million new households per year.

More good news? Meservier and Associates is prepared to assist both the boomers and the “echo boomers” with their searches for new homes!

*Gary Painter, “What Happens to Household Formation in a Recession?” (Washington, DC: Research Institute for Housing America, 2010).

On every transaction we do we send a client satisfaction survey asking some specific questions and rating our performance on a scale of 1 to 10 then a additional comment section.   When you get perfect a “10″ rating an these for additional comments.  It’s hard not so share them.  Here’s what Scott & Dana Annear from Auburn, Maine had to say about their recent real estate transaction…

We are very pleased with the realty services provided by Sue and her team.  Each person we dealt with was thorough, knowledgeable, efficient and helpful.  Our questions were answers promptly and we felt th eteam had our best interests in mind.  The Meservier Team was superb!

Read what others are also saying at http://www.meservier.com/quotes.asp