HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research Economic and Market Analysis Division has recently begun releasing a series of “Comprehensive Market Analysis Reports” focusing on local housing markets throughout the nation. These market analyses were developed to guide HUD’s operations, however, the factual information, findings, and conclusions may also be useful to builders, mortgagees, and others concerned with local housing conditions and trends. To support the market analysis and forecast, each report contains several data tables illustrating trends in labor force and employment, population and household changes, changes in housing inventory and production; as well as estimates of forecast sales and rental housing demand. The prospective demand expressed in the analysis is not a forecast of building activity; rather, it presents the prospective housing production which would maintain a reasonable balance in demand-supply relationship given the market’s condition on the as-of date of the analysis. HUD’s field economists develop the factual framework for each analysis based on information available from both local and national sources as of a specific date. As such, the findings and conclusions of the reports may be modified by future developments. The reports take into consideration changes in the economic, demographic, and housing inventory characteristics of a specific housing market area during three periods: from 1990 to 2000, from 2000 to the "as of" date of the analysis, and from the "as of" date to a forecast date. The analysis presents counts and estimates of employment, population, households, and housing inventory, as of the 1990 and 2000 Censuses, the Current date and Forecast date. Reports are currently available for Westchester County, New York; Lubbock,
Texas; Elmira-Corning, New York; Athens, Georgia; Caguas, Puerto Rico;
and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Within the next month reports are scheduled
to be released for: Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, Pennsylvania; Boise,
Idaho; Canton, Ohio; Lafayette, Indiana; Las Vegas, Nevada; Monroe,
Louisiana; and Montgomery, Alabama.
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