Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Existing Home Sales

Bloomberg Reports on NAR's Existing Home Sales Numbers


U.S. home resales fell 1.9 percent in September and prices dropped from year-ago levels for a second month, the first back-to-back monthly declines since 1990.

Existing home sales fell to an annual rate of 6.18 million rate, the lowest since January 2004, from 6.3 million in August, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington.

Compared with a year earlier, sales were down 14.2 percent, the Realtors group said. Home resales have fallen every month since March.

The median sales price fell 2.2 percent to $220,000 from a year earlier. Prices in August had fallen for the first time in 11 years.

The number of homes for sale fell 2.4 percent from August to 3.75 million, remaining at a 7.3 months' supply.
Nationally, the September median sales price is down 2.2% from a year ago. In real dollars that national is a decline of over 5%. The housing bubble has occured in many places throughout the US. These locales are enough to make national YoY price declines.

"Existing condominium and cooperative housing sales fell 3.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 763,000 units in September from 788,000 in August, and were 16.0 percent less than the 908,000-unit pace in September 2005. The median existing condo price was $219,800 in September, which is 2.8 percent lower than a year ago (NAR)"

"The worst is behind us as far as a market correction _ this is likely the trough for sales," said David Lereah, the Realtors' chief economist. "When consumers recognize that home sales are stabilizing, we'll see the buyers who've been on the sidelines get back into the market."

Another inane comment by Mr. Lereah. Consumers care far more about house prices stabilizing then 'home sales stabilizing.' Prices will continue to fall in the bubble markets over the coming years. Don't be fooled by David 'Paid Shill' Lereah.

6 comments:

  1. So when's the collapse you've been promising going to come to DC? My zip is up 10% year over year.

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  2. David Lereah must be speaking to NAR members, hoping they won't drop out. If they pay dues then they need to hang on and hang on and hang on. They will, at some point, realize that this guy is not looking out for their interests. Real estate agent taking advantage of real estate agents. Sad isn't it?

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  3. You DC folks might find this interesting:

    http://tinyurl.com/y96jgd

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  4. My vote in 08' for President, will be written in. Vote for: Jeffrey M. Lacker.

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  5. I don't see any stabilisation in home sales.

    NAR Exsiting Home Sales

    Sales are still going down.

    DL must have switched to something a lot more potent than the koolaid.

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  6. thanks for the warning Va_Investor.

    ReplyDelete