Posted on 07/27/2009 9:01:54 AM PDT by SonOfDarkSkies
The government says new U.S. home sales rose by the largest amount in nearly nine years last month, in another sign the housing market is finally bouncing back from the worst downturn in decades.
The Commerce Department says sales rose 11 percent in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 384,000, from an upwardly revised May rate of 346,000.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
These so called crises work in ‘circles.’ They will eventually go back up again if left alone. Bailouts be damned.
Recessions are just part of the natural ebb and flow of an economy.
All Obama has done is beef up the pork...and leave a big bill!
Yes they did. And I’m 100% sure it was due to lower prices.
They could have as accurately headlined this article “Home Prices Drop Another 6% In June”.
Still in all, I don't think we'll be able to speculate our way out of this mess and frolic barefoot through the Green Shoots.
Things are starting to look up. The one thing that needs to be done is get the nine percent back to work with the other ninty-one percent and we should be back on track.
lower prices bring out the buyers. Funny how that works.
And don't forget that $8,000 of your federal taxes (equal to or more than the total annual liability of many people) are going to first-time homebuyers.
So, how are those foreclosures and delinquencies going?
Naw, there's no problem with that. Housing sales are up! BUY BUY BUY!
Not just lower home prices, but interest rates that look like they may be rising soon!
Two things to NB:
1. These are “seasonally adjusted” numbers. The “Seasonal adjustment” is arrived at by looking at past patterns of seasonal changes in sales.
2. These are contract signings, not actual closed sales. Remember how the new home sales numbers loved to report happy-happy times in 2007, even as I and others on FR were pointing out that over 30% of the signed contracts to buy homes were falling through? A lot of the press seems to have forgotten that little tidbit that some people saw as an indication that the home bubble was popping.
What I’d like to see is some data in the next two months on how many people who signed contracts got their loans approved and actually closed on the sale.
Another thing to consider is that many of these month-over-month changes reported in new home sales are well within the margin of statistical noise. It is very difficult to discern an inflection point from month-to-month changes in new home sales data because the noise margin is so wide now.
One more thing to NB: builders had to cut their prices 12% YOY and 5.8% sequentially to compete with foreclosures. A 5.8% drop in a month to compete with foreclosures is what I’d call “fire sale pricing” for the builders.
Are home sales typically higher in summer months? I’m not so sure this is anything new.
What's new in the last six months is the increasing number of buyers as the numbers indicate. I am seeing many houses with multiple offers driving the purchase price above the list price.
From what I heard on the radio over the weekend, 37% of home sales fell thru last month due to several factors, the biggest being the atrocious regulations on appraisals that have been imposed.
I saw many homes sell in the 100,000 to 150,000 range and fewer in the 150,000 to 200,000 range and none over that amount. I think this is all smoke and mirrors and from the credit. I have seen no sales since June. Just my opinion based on nothing but observation in Michigan./p>
Appraisal fraud has been one of the biggest components of the run-up in home prices, especially in places like CA. The appraisal process does need to be changed, and one of the changes should be that banks not be allowed to conduct appraisals - at all. All appraisals should be conducted by a third party who gets paid whether the loan goes through or not.
The government says new U.S. home sales rose by the largest amount in nearly nine years last month, in another sign the housing market is finally bouncing back from the worst downturn in decades. The Commerce Department says sales rose 11 percent in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 384,000, from an upwardly revised May rate of 346,000.This is a sign of the recovery that proceeds from the precipitous drop in the price of crude oil. This is also the sign of how far delayed the recovery was due to Obama's malfeasance.
The government and the media want SOOOOO badly for everyone to buy into this Green Shoots™ crap and so do a lot of well-meaning people who just want to be optimistic. The problem is that the math doesn't support that.
I agree you can't have 500,000 new unemployed people a month , higher taxes and a government telling small business to hunker down and expect more regulation. No way we are out of the woods.
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