Monday, 7/10

I don't know much about real estate, but even I'm thinking that this is good news.

I stumbled across a map a few days ago from Harvard that shows the areas of the country where real estate prices have finally climbed back from the big hit they took during The Great Recession. In other words, the map showed, among other things, where housing prices are now at or above where they were in 2008. There are big swathes of the country where prices still haven't recovered; in fact, there are only three counties in the state of Michigan where housing prices have gained in value, and there's only ONE county in Michigan where prices have now risen almost 40 percent above where they were a decade ago.

Wanna venture a guess as to what county it it? Yup; you get yourself a cookie if you said Marquette County.

It's kind of amazing when you look at the map. There are many counties, both downstate and here in the UP, where values are still below 2008. If you look, you'll notice there are only three areas—Marquette, Grand Rapids, and right outside of Detroit—where values have actually risen about their 2008 levels. And there's only one county in the state that's orange, and that's us.

In fact, if you look at ALL the Great Lakes states or the entire Upper Midwest region, we're one of the few counties with values that have gone up that much.

Like I said at the beginning, I think that's a good thing, right? I mean, it shows people want to live here and that homes & property have value and are a good investment. Hopefully, the 40% rise in values is a sign of good supply and high demand. Hopefully, it doesn't mean that things are so overpriced that we're about to have another real estate bubble that's about to burst. But I don't think that's the case; if you look at the map, the places across the country where real estate prices have recovered reflect a lot of places with a high quality of life and/or access to things like water and recreation. In a nutshell, that's us.

And even though I know nothing about real estate, that's why I'm thinking it's a good thing.

If you wanna read the article that goes along with the map, just click here. Otherwise, just pat yourself on the back—once again, Marquette leads the way!!

(jim@wmqt.com)