Federal Housing Finance Agency Shows Real Estate in Lancaster, PA a Good Investment

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Let’s here it for Lancaster County!  We’re taking names and kickin’ some butt.  YaaaHooo!

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) just released their “All-Transactions Home-Price Index” which compares the fourth quarter of 2007 with the fourth quarter of 2008 and it shows that Lancaster County, Pennsylvania is faring better than most other real estate markets nationally.  While the national appreciation rate dropped 4.5% for that period, Lancaster showed an increase of 1.6%.  Their study is based upon purchase prices and refinancing appraisal amounts for the last quarter.

Before I get too caught up in myself, let’s take a step back and look at national home price surveys in general.  It seems like every every government agency, financial institution, REALTOR® organization and corner coffeehouse has their own version of what real estate prices are doing.  Let’s face it, if you crunch the numbers long enough and add a touch of this and a pinch of that, you can make statistics back-up anything you’re selling.  In fact, my analysis of the the local data supplied by the Keystone MLS for the month of December actually showed Lancaster County’s prices taking a dip.   But that’s not the point.  Regardless of what formula or methodology is utilized by any of these entities, they are all basically showing the same thing: when you compare Lancaster County versus other areas of the state and country, we’re more than holding our own.

So the next time you hear a news report or read a newspaper about how home prices in Las Vegas are plummeting by the hour; remember, the old adage definitely applies, “All real estate is local.”