Oklahoma experts in housing relay fears about future
Real estate outlook remains daunting amid economic strife

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BY RICHARD MIZE

Published: November 8, 2008

Signs of the times are these announcing builder incentives and open houses for homes for sale in the Enclave at Stonebriar addition south of NW 192 and east of Western Avenue. PHOTO BY RICHARD MIZE, THE OKLAHOMAN

The Realtor’s fear: dried-up mortgage credit stays dry.

The banker’s fear: banking’s tarnished reputation is ruined further.

The home builder’s fear: sky-high interest rates.

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Fears surfaced this week at the Oklahoma Homebuyer Education Association’s annual conference.

Katrina Washington, president of Stratos Realty, Brad Swickey, president and chief executive of Valliance Bank, and David Ritchie, builder-developer in Enid, were on a panel that considered housing and national policy.

Moderator Dennis Shockley, executive director of the Oklahoma Housing Finance Agency, asked the panelists what they feared most.

Washington, who is president of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers’ Oklahoma City chapter, said the credit that helps people buy homes has tightened up, and home sales have slowed down.

However, she said the metro area’s resilient home values are its strength.

Swickey echoed that.

"In Oklahoma, our appreciation year over year is not dramatic. It’s stable. So most Oklahoma buyers look at a home as a home, not as an investment,” Swickey said.

He said the slowdown here is partly because stricter loan underwriting standards have shut so many buyers out of the market. Washington said some buyers are afraid to buy because values might go down.

Swickey, who is on the Oklahoma Bankers Association board of directors, said his worst fear is public perception that all bankers are bad bankers, because of foolish bankers and mortgage dealers.

It was mostly nonbank mortgage originators that made bad loans. The investment banks that made and lost fortunes on mortgage-backed securities were not local or regional banks that maintained prudent approaches to lending, he said.

The threat of inflation and a return to double-digit interest rates is what troubles Ritchie, who is co-owner of Chisholm Creek Development in Enid and president of the Oklahoma State Home Builders Association.

Ritchie said that seems likely with all the money the government is pouring into the economy. He said he’d retire rather than relive the late 1970s and early ’80s, when his construction loans came with 22-percent interest rates.

Related Topics: Business, Real Estate, Real Estate Sales