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| Last Month Was Indeed Too Good to Be True |
| Written by Jonathan Smoke | |
| 04.22.2008 | |
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Discuss this article on the forums. (0 posts) Last month Wall Street was encouraged by a surprise increase in February’s existing home sales. I reported that the signal, though positive, was weak. Based on today’s release of March existing home sales by the National Association of Realtors, that signal indeed seems to be a bit of a fluke. According to NAR, existing home sales declined 2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.93 million units in March from 5.03 million in February. Digging into the numbers, single family home sales fell 2.7% for the first decline since December. Sales of condos were up. Below is an updated chart of month-over-month changes since 1990 in single family existing home sales. In 1991-1992 and after 9/11, we experienced upswings of 6.5-7.4%. I won’t feel good about upswings until they are in such a range or better. It’s likely to be rocky in aggregate for the next few months. Don’t be surprised to see ups and downs as foreclosures work through the system in the most impacted markets. 
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