The price of existing homes last month fell 2.2 percent, the largest monthly decline in the almost four decades If I didn't know any better this might scare me.
- In September the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) released its House Price Index. Even though there has been a slowdown in price appreciation, home prices were 10.06% higher in the second quarter of 2006 than they were in 2005.
- This slowdown is really just a reduction in the rate of increases compared to the past. For example, in the second quarter of 2005, the yearly home price appreciation was 14%.
- Over the past 12 months home price appreciation in Florida, Idaho and Arizona has been more than 20%. In Washington it was 17%, California 14% and New York 10%.
- Annual home price appreciation since 2000 has averaged about 9%. During that same time the Dow is up around 1%. In the 1990's home price appreciation averaged 2.9% while the Dow grew by almost 300%.
Housing has slowed so you become purveyor of doom and talk about fundamentals that don't exist. Over the past two months housing has slowed a great deal and you've cited that as vindication of your doomsaying. What you fail to recognize is that over that same two month period the Dow has increased by more than 6%. This tells me that investors are confident in our economy and that your fundamentals are fundamentally flawed.
You are a purveyor of Keynesian cradle to grave debt dogma. People like you are the cause of doom and gloom. I simply report the effects of the disastrous policies you and your fellow debt-mongers advocate.