Posted on 03/03/2010 6:48:02 AM PST by xtinct
Economic signals have been all over the map lately, making it hard to get a handle on what's happening in the housing market and broader economy. Every now and again, it is of value to connect the dots -- the sort of thing U.S. intelligence agencies historically fail to do combating terrorism -- to get a truer picture of the state of the economy and real estate market.
With this in mind, let's look at some of the statistics that emerged in just the past seven days. It's fair to say that, when taken together, any reasonable person would be forced to conclude that the real estate market, despite talk of a budding economic recovery, is still very much in need of emergency care. Let's begin.
Even with the much blogged about extension of the tax credit for new home buyers, sales of existing homes actually fell in January by 7.2 percent, according to the National Association of Realtors.
In large part, existing homes, in many parts of the country, are foreclosed properties selling at vastly reduced rates. Yet even with the government tax credit beckoning "buy! buy! buy," Americans clearly are not heeding the call in large enough numbers.
But that's only, of course, one dot -- one part of the puzzle needed to complete our picture.
Only days before the release of the existing home sales report, another survey revealed that the sale of new homes reached its lowest levels since 1963!
New home sales, in many ways, are more important to the health of the economy than existing home sales because new homes mean construction and other jobs to build the houses in the first place. That has a ripple effect on the rest of our economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at housingwatch.com ...
The democrat party is utterly crushing the Greatest Economy on earth.
Population has doubled since then(1963) making that unadjusted stat even more scary.....
The hidden story behind these numbers is that the excess supply of new housing built in the last 10+ years was one of the major factors in the drive to give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.
This country's lax immigration policy isn't based on the desire for cheap labor . . . it's based on the desire for more consumers.
How about a tax credit for ALL home buyers?
How about a big tax credit for all who pay off their homes early? Wouldn’t this help with the banks’ cash flow?
Propping up the inflated current values is not going to be possible.
No more than propping up the prices of Comic books in the 90s was possibles after the speculators left the market.
The intrinsic value of a house directly indexes against the population density and the true single person median income.
In our community housing values are down 12 - 17% over a year ago, 30% from 2005. 48% of current sales are foreclosures sold at a reduced price, thus further eroding home values. Sales are nearly flat with only 97 home sales in February - all this in a county of 100,000+ population.
“The democrat party is utterly crushing the Greatest Economy on earth.”
ON PURPOSE
I agree with you only if foreign money(Chinese) doesn't come flooding into the housing market to mop up excess inventory.
Got an appraisal letter from the county yesterday showing our home was appraised at less than we paid for it in 2001.
I can’t see how this can actually recover until the fedgov gets out of the mortgage business. They took it over in 07 and you can see the results. Add to that the takeover of the auto industry and their drive to take over the medical industry. Down the road when grownups take the govt back, they need to back out of all these industries and leave them alone to make or break.
China is on the brink as well.
Not only do they not have enough money, they would mire themselves in the pit of the property taxes and millages affixed to the inflated values they paid.
They are not going to plunge a money siphon into the arteries of their banking system.
They will funnel(hide) the money through a US holding corp.
Except that the "consumers" that result from a lax immigration policy tend to be sub-minimum-wage laborers who send every spare cent back to the Old Country, consuming as little as possible here, except for that which is paid for by gummint/taxpayers.
In short, housing is doomed.
That’s an oversimplification, I think. They have to eat, they need a place to sleep, and — get this — more and more states have been passing laws that give driving privileges to illegal aliens, too.
Our county still has assessment values well over what they can sell for and it does not look like there will be a downward adjustment.
Of course they do.
Bean burritos, and bunking, in shifts, a dozen to a bedroom.
Their per-capita "consumption" as as absolutely minimal as possible.
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