RISMEDIA, November 12, 2009—Point2 Technologies Inc. released the findings from its Real Estate Confidence Index (RECI) survey for the United States, for the month of October 2009. The Index measured 5.59 on the 1-10 Index Scale (1 being “bad” and 10 being “good”), down 4.11% month-over-month.
While the October RECI score came in below the September reading of 5.83, a number of brokers and agents leveraging foreclosure properties in most states cited and credited strong business activity to this category, enabled by the federal government’s $8,000 First-Time Buyer Credit.
The RECI tracks the opinions of thousands of real estate brokers and agents, measuring their forward-looking sentiment of the real estate market, across the United States.
Properties in the mid to low price ranges continued to generate the majority of market activity in most states, as indicated by brokers and agents who participated in the RECI survey in October.
Typical winter season market adjustments were also cited by some respondents as a reason why markets may slow down until activity starts to rebound beginning in February.
The RECI tracks the current market sentiment, short-term (3-6 months) optimism/pessimism and long-term (6-12 months) optimism/pessimism of real estate professionals in the United States. The median across all three time periods represents the forward-looking Index measure for the month.
Real estate professionals’ current sentiment, one of the three variables that make up the RECI, averaged 4.89 on a seasonally-adjusted basis, for the month of October. The change represents a 3.36% decrease in confidence across the country versus last month. October is the first time the current sentiment has turned negative compared to the previous month’s reading, since the RECI’s introduction in June.
The forward-looking short-term (3-6 months) optimism/pessimism reading came in at 5.37, remaining above the mid point on the RECI 1 – 10 scale despite it being 5.79 percentage points lower than the September score.
Long-term (6-12 months) optimism/pessimism remains in stronger positive territory at 6.51 on the scale, but also off by 3.12% versus the September reading of 6.72.
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