Housing market 11% below norm

By The Commercial Appeal
August 19, 2005

Are you feeling undervalued? Like you're missing out on the real estate boom?

According to the economics department of National City Corp., Memphis's housing market is one of the most undervalued in the United States.

NCC officials said the Memphis metro area was 11 percent below the norm.

The study finds Santa Barbara, Calif., to be the country's most overheated market at 69 percent above the norm, while College Station, Texas, is ranked the most undervalued at 19 percent below the norm.

For the study, price-to-income ratios are statistically explained by household population density, mortgage interest rates, relative income levels and characteristics unique to each metro area.

Renasant to move in

Renasant Bank executives and commercial lenders will move into the bank's new digs in East Memphis on Monday.

About 18 people will help occupy the 12,000 square feet the bank has on two floors at 5240 Poplar, about twice the space it had in its Germantown nest. A branch -- the bank's third in Shelby County -- will open there by Thursday, said Frank Cianciola, president and chief executive officer.

Renasant isn't giving up on its birthplace in Germantown -- about 15 employees, headed by Don Russell, executive vice president, will stay in Germantown.

With its acquisition last year by The Peoples Holding Co., of Tupelo, since renamed Renasant Corp., the Germantown-Memphis bank also had DeSoto County offices to manage, so the move gives it a more central location. The bank has a branch in Cordova and is building one in Collierville.

Sovereign in top 500

Sovereign Wealth Management of Memphis didn't grow as fast last year as in 2003, but the company still ranked among Bloomberg Wealth Manager magazine's top 500 wealth managers.

Sovereign stood at No. 121, based on the average amount of money managed for each client -- about $2.1 million. Last year, the firm was No. 94.

With $180 million under management, a 20 percent increase from 2003, Sovereign's growth didn't match the 216.4 percent that made it the fastest growing wealth management firm in the nation in 2003.

Today's numbers

One-third of business users blame Microsoft for the recent worm outbreak.

Thirty-five percent of respondents to an informal Web survey of customers by security company Sophos said the software maker was at fault for the recent rash of worms spawned by variants of Zotob. The results, released on Thursday, show 45 percent place the blame squarely on the virus writers, while 20 percent laid blame on their systems administrators for not patching systems fast enough.