IRVINE, CA-The average monthly number of labor-market jobs created nationwide between February 2010 and 2012 outpaced the average monthly number of jobs, according to CoreLogic's January MarketPulse report. While job growth lagged behind overall economic growth and did not turn positive until February 2010, the average monthly number of jobs created from February 2010 through November 2012 was 140,000—but the labor market created an average of 150,000 jobs per month, the report says.
“These levels can be compared to an average monthly number of 92,000 jobs created between the recession at the beginning of the last decade and the beginning of the Great Recession,” says Mark Fleming, CoreLogic's chief economist, in the report. “While the economy is strengthening, there is more to be done.”
Also in the report, as GlobeSt.com reported this morning, the housing market made an impressive recovery in 2012, with total home sales increasing 6% to 4.2 million—up from 3.9 million in 2011—and the first increase since 2005. The CoreLogic Home Price Index, which is based on repeat sales, increased 7.5% in 2012, the largest increase since 2006.
Furthermore, in 2013, CoreLogic projects home prices to rise 6% due to greater affordability fueling steady demand, a lower level of REO sales and a low inventory of unsold homes. “Recovery will likely continue in 2013, though we should not expect a full recovery by year-end,” said Fleming. “Financial crisis-driven recessions are particularly hard to recovery from, and this was a particularly large crisis. Nevertheless, 2012 was a pleasant surprise, particularly in the housing market, and the future is more hopeful than in years past.”
Fleming pointed out in the report that the housing market mounted an impressing recovery in 2012, with shadow inventory improving from a peak of more than 3 million in 2010, as GlobeSt.com previously reported. He also said that the market had been “plagued by uncertainty as the state attorneys general worked out an agreement with major mortgage servicers that would ultimately be adopted in 2012 as a broad framework for servicing distressed assets. The main fear was that foreclosures would resume in abundance and the distressed sales would depress home prices even further. In addition, negative equity remained elevated and without price.”
However, Fleming said, mortgage servicers had developed alternative loss-disposition processes such that even after the attorneys general settlement, completed foreclosures continued to fall. “Paradoxically, negative equity helped many of the hardest hit housing markets recover by locking out prospective sellers.” In addition, the single-family rental market emerged as a significant source of demand for low-price and distressed properties and a likely source of an emerging secondary-market, asset-backed security in 2013.
What's the labor market like in your neck of the woods? Tell us in the comment box below.
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Carrie Rossenfeld
Carrie Rossenfeld is a reporter for the San Diego and Orange County markets on GlobeSt.com and a contributor to Real Estate Forum. She was a trade-magazine and newsletter editor in New York City before moving to Southern California to become a freelance writer and editor for magazines, books and websites. Rossenfeld has written extensively on topics including commercial real estate, running a medical practice, intellectual-property licensing and giftware. She has edited books about profiting from real estate and has ghostwritten a book about starting a home-based business.
