Posted on 10/02/2007 7:52:07 AM PDT by Hydroshock
Edited on 10/02/2007 8:17:13 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The meltdown in the mortgage market in August dried up the supply of buyers for homeowners looking to sell their homes, as an industry group report showed the lowest level of homes under contract on record.
The National Association of Realtors' pending home sales index fell to a record low of 85.5 from an upwardly revised 91.4 reading in July. That broke the previous low of 89.8 in September 2001, the period in which the terrorist attack shook buyer confidence. The trade group started the index in 2001.
This time the hit to home sales came from buyers having trouble finding the financing they needed to buy homes, coupled with the reluctance of some buyers to jump into the battered market.
"Fewer contracts were being written because of mortgage availability issues, and a separate internal survey of our members shows more than 10 percent of sales contracts fell through at the last moment in August, primarily the result of canceled loan commitments," said a statement from Lawrence Yun, senior economist for the group. "The volume of activity we're seeing today is below sustainable market fundamentals because some creditworthy people are trying to buy homes but can't because of the credit crunch."
What we should do is ALLOW the MARKET to self correct. Have NO GOVERNMENT involvement since that will ONLY EXASPERATE things. Plus people need to LEARN to be savvy buyers and buy ONLY what they can AFFORD. Government intervention would only reward irresponsible behavior. Government intervention FUELED the Depression - let's NOT repeat that.
Time to goose up the stock market some more to rescue investors instead of home owners. There must be some ‘trickle down’ here, right?
I would say the prices are insane, not just overheated.
* - Records only kept for the past 6 years.
“Record low” doesn’t mean much when the records only started in 2001.
This “pending home sales index” seems to reflect the degree to which prospective home buyers can find mortgage lenders. The fact that fewer buyers have been successful in getting mortgage approval is natural given that the lending of money to buyers who were then unable to meet their mortgage payments started the whole mess to begin with. I think that lending institutions are now checking more closely the financial situation of borrowers before lending them mortgage money. Therefore, I don’t believe the index is any sort of indicator that the housing market is collapsing, merely that buyers are being subjected to a more rigorous background check.
The socialist/dims' overlords are going to try to drive a nail into this coffin, for Americans are simply not buying their candidate, Mrs. Clinton.
Lowest on record. The record began in 2001.
Funny. The stock prices of home builders are up ten to fifteen percent over the past two days. Even after this bad news they are still well in the green for today even though the rest of the market is red. Toll Brothers is still up eight percent today.
Maybe they need to look at a wider range of data.
Things are booming compared to the 80’s for home builders:
So what does that have to do with the cost of houses? Oh wait could tehy be up becasue they are cutting, in many cases deeply the price they are charging for houses?
When you're running a confidence game, nothing matters more than confidence.
BUMP
I have been turning on a few coworkers and friends to Dave Ramsey. I have yet met one who did not liek what he has to say and to some degree or another started to follow his advice.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.