Housing in New Mexico

In Albuquerque the number of closed sales of homes dropped 34% to 674 in May from 1,020 in May 2007. For the layman, that means it may be a stretch to say that "The Albuquerque market continues to improve," which is the statement of Cathy Olson, chairman of the Albuquerque Board of Realtors, in the board's news release about May sales.
Among the states, New Mexico continues in the middle of the pack in housing market performance, according to numbers from "The State of the Nation's Housing, 2008," released Monday by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.
Residential building permits are down 35.1% from 2005 to 2007. For comparison, two states—Florida and Michigan—were down more than 60%. Arizona was down 45%. Building permit levels are down more than 45% in Ohio, Alaska, California and Nevada.
During the fourth quarter of 2007, one half of one percent of mortgage loans in New Mexico were entering foreclosure. At the end of the quarter, one percent were in foreclosure and another 1.9% were seriously delinquent. Only six states had less that one percent of loans in foreclosure.
Being married seems to give one the best shot at being a homeowner. Across the nation, 87.4% of married couples without children are homeowners. The next highest rate of homeownership is married couples with children are homeowners with 78.6% owning their home. All other household types were more than 20 points below the married with children group.