Posted on 12/23/2009 9:03:59 AM PST by My Favorite Headache
WASHINGTON – Sales of new homes plunged unexpectedly last month to the lowest level since April, a sign the housing market recovery will be rocky.
The 11 percent slump from October's pace shows that consumers are taking their time following an extension of a deadline for first-time buyers to qualify for a tax credit. The incentive was set to expire at the end of November, but Congress pushed back the date to April 30 and expanded the program to include current homeowners who relocate.
"They don't have to act today," said David Crowe, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders, who called the results "pretty awful."
The Commerce Department said sales hit a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 355,000 last month, off from a downwardly revised 400,000 pace in October. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected 440,000.
The median sales price of $217,400 was down nearly 2 percent from $221,600 a year earlier, but up about 4 percent from October's level of $209,400.
Builders had 235,000 new homes for sale nationwide at the end of November. That was down 2 percent from October and the lowest inventory level since April 1971. At the current weak sales pace, that still represents nearly eight months of supply.
Robert Toll, CEO of luxury builder Toll Brothers Inc. said earlier this month demand has been "choppy" after several strong months in the spring and summer.
"You just have to bite the finger, be patient, and wait until you see what comes out in the latter part of January, all of February and in the early part of March," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Hahaha you can put that picture with ANY AP economy article every week this year.
And remember how all positive information during George’s presidency was ‘unexpected’
If it really were a drinking game, I would be an alcoholic by now.
What a way to use the word.
The solution is: We all take our GM stocka and go buy a house.
Unexpectedly, the unexpected decline of unexpected housing growth (of unexpectation) was unexpectedly lower at an unexpected 11%. This unexpecteded number was unexpectedly unexpected.
So anytime there’s bad economic news next year and the AP says “unexpected” we all take a drink? We’ll be drunks before spring...
Congratulations to “Unexpectedly”: 2009 Adverb of The Year!!
>”And remember how all positive information during George’s presidency was ‘unexpected’”<
The AP never ran any positive stories about the Bush Administration. Any news with positive statistics always had a caveat.
For example, when 250,000 jobs were created in a single month, they were always the wrong type of jobs. They usually played up that a lot of those created jobs were in the “service” category rather than “manufacturing”, just to make the good news look bad.
Eight years of brainwashing got us the Marxist Kenyan.
Better un-bite that digit, Robert.
Anyone even THINKING of buying a new house now knows that they will be paying double for health insurance in the near future (evaporating the merest notion of making a house payment).
Marxist re-distributionists just never, ever figure this one out, do they?
.
Interesting what an $8,000 tax credit will do to a price
Unexpectedly beet out extraordinary by a hair.
“Unexpected” my arse!
LLS
“Eight years of brainwashing got us the Marxist Kenyan”
Right. BDS was a manufactured thing. They put their people on screaming & raving, and it trickles into the audience. People think there’s no smoke without fire.
I’ll post this again, the CNN economy tracker. It is a video of a sort, and you can look up unemployment in construction. Curls your hair:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/map.economy/index.html
The problem with comparisons is the effect of the on again, off again credit.
OMG, great catch.
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