They are out and they are BAD. The stock market meltdown and the job losses are obviously starting to show in the numbers. The number of new homes sold was the lowest since 1981! That's BAD.
Existing-home sales – including single-family, town-homes, condos and co-ops – fell 8.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.49 million units in November, from a downwardly revised level of 4.91 million in October, and are 10.6 percent below the 5.02 million-unit pace in November 2007. ( those numbers put us back in 1998 territory).
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist said he expected a decline. “The quickly deteriorating conditions in the job market, stock market, and consumer confidence in October and November have knocked down home sales to another level. We hope the home sales impact from the stock market crash turns out to be short-lived, as was the case in 1987 and 2001,” (Well it doesn't hurt to hope Lawrence.)
Total inventory also increased to an 11.2 month supply. (Isn't is supposed to go down this time of year?).
From Bloomberg
Sales prices for existing U.S. homes fell the most on record in November, tearing a deeper hole into households’ already tattered finances. The median resale price fell 13 percent from a year before, to $181,300, “probably the largest price decline since the Great Depression".
“November sales just collapsed,” said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York. “Price declines are accelerating. As bad as this is, it’s going to be considerably worse in a month’s time.”
“Housing is still in a freefall,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.
5 comments:
I'm seeing more homes hit the MLS and seeing prices starting to finally come down a bit....I think buying will start to be ripe in March.
in the areas I'm looking the inventory is dropping. That's not unusual for this time of year though. The prices however are continuing to decline. In the last month or two I've notice a big move down on the prices. I think spring should be a decent time to buy if things keep going like they currently are. Next winter though is probably going to be the prime time. I think the prices will be very close to the bottom in late 09 or early 2010.
I'm holding out on this thought process that when our president elect goes into office in January (and this is not based on Obama himself - just that a new president is taking over)that we will see an up swing --- a false sense of security and hope - know what I mean? I think that false sense of confidence will produce play money and the market will start to do some funny things..I think we could see housing stablize by mid June or right around where "X" states - towards the end of 2009...
The MLS lisitngs that I see more of (and I am not saying there are allot) are REO's....perhaps the Short Sales coming to an end. My realtor told me a few weeks back that there has been some talk about reforming these short sales - that they are sitting on the market way to long and the Feds are wanting the banks to cut their losses now and to account for them...The Feds aren't that stupid - they know that they really don't have a handle on what the mortgage losses really are because you have banks trying to do the "MODIFICATION LOANS"...please!
I read that countrywide is hiring an outside outfit to handle their short sales in an effort to streamline and speed up the process. I bet if it works other banks will follow.
I agree "X" - I think banks will certainly follow suit - especially if the Feds get involved.
These homeowners who are living in these short sale homes are not paying a dime of mortgage (or most aren't). I can tell you too that they aren't saving their money either - it's like the bank enables these people to continue their bad financial decisions and then in turn, create more issues for themselves by sitting on these homes...Dumb & Dumb-ER-ER
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