Well, well, well! Another article about development and the real estate market .....but never fear, we're sure those development plans along the Main Line will keep on trucking, won't they? After all, we have yet to meet a municipality that says either "no" to more development, or even says "proceed with caution" and isn't that maddening??

Regionally: Results better, but market isn't so giddy now.
By Joseph N. DiStefano
Inquirer Staff Writer

Homes are still moving, but local bankers and home sellers confirm that the giddy market of the last five years has passed.

"I have a huge inventory right now," said Francis McGill, owner of a real estate agency in Roxborough. "They're not flowing like they were. There's so much out there for sale."

The U.S. government reported yesterday that prices of single-family homes rose 1.17 percent in the second quarter, far slower than the 3.65 percent growth in the second quarter of 2005.

....Local home-price appreciation "had been higher than it should be," said W. Kirk Wycoff, chairman and chief executive officer of Continental Bank in Plymouth Meeting.

"Homes should appreciate at about the rate of inflation. But, because of the scarcity of land we've had in the Southeastern Pennsylvania suburbs, there's been a land grab, with developers trying to buy the houses before there's no land left." The resulting spike in land prices was passed on to buyers; prices moved too quickly, so they were due to flatten, Wycoff said.

...Some Philadelphia developers, worried that there are too many condo projects nearing completion, and not enough buyers to sustain new ones.....

Related article: Prices for homes rose less in the 2d quarter
From Inquirer Wire Services

WASHINGTON - Housing prices rose again in the April-to-June quarter, but the increase was the smallest in three decades, a government report released yesterday showed.

The quarterly slowdown came during the spring selling season, when about half of a year's home sales typically occur, suggesting that the housing market may be slowing more rapidly than economists had predicted.

"The wheels are coming off the housing market," said Scott Anderson, an economist at Wells Fargo & Co. in Minneapolis.

....The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, which released the report, cited higher interest rates and rising inventories of homes for sale as possible factors in the slowdown in price growth.

The agency oversees the big mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"These data are a strong indication that the housing market is cooling in a very significant way," James B. Lockhart, the agency director, said in a statement. "Indeed, the deceleration appears in almost every region of the country."

....Data issued last month provided proof that the housing boom is over. The Commerce Department said sales of new homes dropped in July by 4.3 percent, the largest decline since February, while the inventory of unsold homes climbed to a record. Also, sales of previously owned homes fell 4.1 percent in July to a 21/2-year low, according to the National Association of Realtors.