Existing Home Sales - up 10.1% for October 2009
The National Association of Realtors released Existing Home Sales today.
October sales went up 10.1% from September. Sales are also at 2007 levels. NAR attributed this surge to the expiring first time home buyer tax credit and said expect sales to decline for the rest of 2009, Q1 2010.
Existing-home sales – including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – surged 10.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate1 of 6.10 million units in October from a downwardly revised pace of 5.54 million in September, and are 23.5 percent above the 4.94 million-unit level in October 2008. Sales activity is at the highest pace since February 2007 when it hit 6.55 million.
Inventories
Inventories are at their lowest level in 2.5 years.
Total housing inventory at the end of October fell 3.7 percent to 3.57 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 7.0-month supply2 at the current sales pace, down from an 8.0-month supply in September. Unsold inventory totals are 14.9 percent below a year ago.
According to Calculated Risk (link is analysis with graphs), a normal market has a 6 months supply of inventory.
Prices
The Median price of a home is $173,100, an overall drop of 7.1% since October 2008. The September median price was $174,900.
Distressed sales count for 30% of all home sales.
The national median existing-home price3 for all housing types was $173,100 in October, down 7.1 percent from October 2008. Distressed properties, which accounted for 30 percent of sales in October, continue to downwardly distort the median price because they usually sell at a discount relative to traditional homes in the same area.
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And this what recovery looks like?
Forget about jobs and putting people back to work so that we can increase tax revenue to address this deficit hysteria. No, No. We rather re-inflate asset bubbles.
Attempts to re-inflate the asset bubble will not address negative equity situation. Negative equity situation is deep and requires more dramatic action that the Administration and Wall Street want to avoid. So we will keep wasting money with these home buyer tax credits.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
re-inflate
On the housing prices themselves, I think $173k median probably needs to be broken down more. Places where there might be jobs, usually the prices are still way past income that can afford the payments.
The reality is a "50% drop" on a home in say the bay area still means it's way out of reach, even when making 6 figures. $550k, who can afford that?
Wake the fu*k up White House
Here is an absolute key quote from another CR article on existing home sales:
emphasis added.
Mr. President you want to address the budget deficit and federal debt - it's called jobs. Mr. President you want to address the housing crisis - it's called jobs. Mr. President you want your party to remain in power and you get re-elected - it's called jobs.
You and your conservative democratic colleagues got to ask yourselves:
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
vote 3rd party
Hey, what can I say? Although it's hard to find 3rd party candidates that have positions which make sense for me. But at least I'm throwing it out there.
I don't think the Obama administration is asleep. I think the Democrats are still riding the coattails of the ghosts of the Democratic party and what they used to be. i.e. used to be Pro U.S., pro labor, pro middle class....
You guys can put in swear words all you want in these posts, but I personally think we should start pushing for very exact, detailed policy, legislation as we can find it.
Frankly, over the weekend, well, some of the crap coming from the left is just that. I hate to say that but it seems we have some policy pushes that just are nutso in terms of real world econ and job creation.
Anyway, we need to push for proposals, legislation, we believe we actually work.
We need to demand it, I don't think they are asleep. I think they are bought and paid for by lobbyists.
In terms of policy proposals
Some form of direct employment program and Rep. DeLauro's National Infrastructure Development Bank
There. Now can I swear - just kidding.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
God D*@m, you're S$%*ing me!
;)
See, I wasn't even aware of DeLauro's bill.
You know a nice post would be to overview it in detail, then link to the bill. You've seen me do those types of posts.
and you can analyze why it will work.
She's been a huge fighter for the U.S. middle class and it's pretty ridiculous, because she often comes up with some fairly practical solutions and her legislation gets plain ignored, at least in the past.
She's also been aware of offshore outsourcing and is pretty much the only one in Congress where I could find any raw data.
Very good analysis on regional housing prices
econbrowser.
Concludes, what goes up, must come down. i.e. the areas where the bubble was most intense, most artificially created are the regions where the burst or price drop is most intense.
has a lot of statistics, graphs. I'm linking to the overview because the analysis was done as (I think) part of a PhD dissertation.
Nice Post
Ah!!! I found what I was looking for. Somtimes it takes so much effort to find even tiny useful piece of information.
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