Brad Hunter is Metrostudy’s chief economist and
director of strategic consulting. Hunter directs Metrostudy’s consulting work nationwide
and spearheads Metrostudy’s current work with the national development
community as well as investment firms. Metrostudy is the nation’s premier
advisor on local and regional housing market conditions. The firm’s unmatched
database provides the quantitative foundation for its consulting and advisory
work, and backs up Hunter’s forecasts of the housing market, which have been
consistently more accurate than those of most other economists.
Hunter also supervises the bulk of the company’s
multi-market studies, and has orchestrated hundreds of site-specific or
area-specific housing market studies over the past twenty-five years of his
career. He oversees the company’s work for investment funds who are investing a
combined $1 billion in residential property nationwide.
With 25 years’ experience in real estate
analysis and local market economics, Hunter is a full member of the Urban Land
Institute, has authored numerous articles and chapters in ULI-published books,
including Market Profiles, chairs various committees, and is an active member
of the national Community Development Council. He is regularly cited in local
and national journals including recent interviews by the Wall Street Journal,
Business Week, and on CNBC and Bloomberg News. His analysis is also featured in
the book Foreclosure Nation. Hunter graduated in 1985 from the Wharton School
of the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics and has been a
guest lecturer at Harvard University.
Hunter is a speaker at conferences on real
estate opportunities and investing, as well as at real estate think tanks, and
is frequently called upon by key regulatory agencies of the U.S. government for
his insights on the housing sector.
Index jumped 5.5% from year earlier, Metrostudy says
Every metropolitan statistical area in the United States can look forward to increasing remodeling activity this year, with growth averaging 4% and the nation as a whole set to reach an unprecedented level of activity by the third quarter. Those are the economic signals emanating today from the latest edition of the Residential Remodeling Index (RRI), a product of Hanley Wood's Metrostudy unit.
Metrostudy has just completed its latest study, covering homebuilder projects all around the nation. The research company’s team of 400 researchers drives more than 200,000 miles per quarter visiting and collecting data through direct counts. Within Metrostudy’s national footprint, housing starts rose 2.5% between the fourth quarter of 2013 and the fourth quarter of 2014.
Index forecast to fully recover by 3Q2015
Gains miss forecasts by 0.2%, but future predictions remain positive