Get Blog Updates on your iGoogle homepage:
| Rise in Existing Home Sales Good but Weak Signal |
| Written by Jonathan Smoke | |
| 03.24.2008 | |
|
Discuss this article on the forums. (0 posts) The news today is more upbeat about housing as a result of the National Association of Realtor’s release of February’s existing home sales data. Total existing home sales seasonally adjusted rose to 5.03 million from January’s 4.89 million. Since this was the first month-over-month increase since July of last year, it is being received as a good signal that nationally we may indeed be at or near a bottom.  Digging into the numbers, single-family homes rose 2.8% for the second positive month, since January’s numbers were revised upwards to reflect a 0.7% increase over December. Until January, single-family home sales were down or flat since last February. This is an even more encouraging signal because it represents the meat of the market. The signal is good, but it’s not as strong month-over-month as prior downturn-ending upticks in sales have been. In 1991-1992 and after 9/11, we experienced upswings of 6.5-7.4%, so a rise of 2.8% doesn’t compare as strongly. In fact, we saw a bigger increase this time last year just before the subprime meltdown began. In defense of this current trend, we are up after the longest string of negative months that averaged being down 2.9%. Even sales of condos were up in February over January, but despite the increase, the inventory of condos actually rose by 14%. Condos, which are most prolific in large and mostly former bubble markets, are clearly the albatross hanging around housing’s neck. There are 13 months of condos on the market, while the supply of single-family homes has fallen to 9.2 months. 
We're always looking for feedback from our readers.
|
))
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
