This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Existing Home Sales Continue Dropping, Hit 5.05 Million In January, Miss Estimate By Nearly 10%, Down From 6.5 Million In November
January National Association of Realtors existing home sales came in at consensus busting (to the downside) SAAR of 5.05 million, a 7.2% drop from December's 5.44 million, which in turn was 16% lower than November 6.49 million. January consensus was for 5.5 million.
Other data: the biggest deterioration was in the northeast (-10.9% sequentially), total houses sold (-11.1% seq), the months of supply (from 7 to 8), and the decline in both median and average price, coming in at -3.4% and -3.1%, respectively.
- 5191 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -




Green Shoots !
/snarc_on
Blame it on the snow.
/snarc_off
Bad news - so the market can now continue up.
Trust me, one day there will be no logical investor left in the markets as the banks starts punting overvalued crap to one another.
The fact that you dont need a effin brain cell to make money in the market right now shows that there is no need to have a PhD, CFA or whatever 3 letter BS behind your name.
For every move up in the markets right now for no apparent reason, there will be an equal move down to come in the future because the buyers will have to sell eventually. The future aint looking too bright.
Read the article. Sales are up 11% from last January. Month over month sales mean practially NOTHING!!
although i generally agree, especially when
the changes are not statistically significant the
problem with the housing market is that the
us government is a huge part of it...
i know that freddie/fannie have been purchasing
huge numbers of foreclosures (and i am not talking
about the fed's qe program)....until those
numbers are factored out of the changes, i would
not be too optimistic about an 11% increase....
"Read the article. Sales are up 11% from last January. Month over month sales mean practially NOTHING!!"
I did read the article, how do you comment regarding this part: "January consensus was for 5.5 million"?
They're as dead as a grilled Greek octopus in my NE, NY Wall St burb.
Yes, there seems to be a bid under this piece of shit market. I'm thinking it's purely anticipation of QE2. This market is a complete DOG, and under normal circumstances, and I guess eventually, shorts are going to make a killing.
Regression to normal prices must happen at some point, regardless of manipulation. It is simply unsustainable to have a 30x PE Dow and much, much higher PE NASDAQ, Russell, SPX.
Who wants to hold this non-dividend paying shit in a depression at hese massively inflated values?
"Who wants to hold this non-dividend paying shit in a depression at hese massively inflated values?"
Apparently every pension manager and 401K administrator in the world.
If this is what they call buying themselves a job, I hope the recipients of these pensions, IRAs, 401(k) etc. carve them up when they find out they've been screwed just to keep these assholes employed.
Move along, nothing to see.... pure economics and main street stuff..
forget it... just buy junk, you know you must... Godman Says
When can I get a Dow 15,000 baseball cap???
The chart doesn't show the housing market rolling over but instead hitting a bridge abutment. That's gonna leave a scar.
All Real Estate is local. And it's absolutely crazy in some of the major cities in California right now. Multiple offers (15+ sometimes) and prices going up. This is in parts of the SF Bay and LA regions from what I hear.
Wells Fargo has even loosened Credit a bit in select neighborhoods, for Jumbo Loans. Instead of 25% down, one now needs only 20%. They claim they'll reduce that further once the MBS market opens up again (I wish I were making this up).
The Fed has quite successfully managed to blow another Real Estate bubble. And it's in large part due to the record low inventories for this time of year, as well as the low/zero down loans at the low end.
So while some places may have a scar, others are still waiting.
I would suggest we wait until the wound heals before we begin measuring scars. This little "crisis" is far from over and while I agree that local real estate conditions can vary tremendously, it's the overall effect that ultimately counts.
The FED can only paper this over for so long. The various govt agencies can only manipulate data up to a point. Something has to give and I'm betting the FED hopes the consequences are ONLY a bad bout of inflation. In an economy that depends upon faith and perception as the primary drivers, people simply don't believe things are getting better. Sooner or later, that perception will come back with a vengeance.
I agree completely. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that RE has hit a bottom, by any means. Rather, it's a comment on this really unusual market.
As I mentioned, it's a bubble in some places. And all bubbles pop. Until the enormous shadow inventory has been cleared, we're no where near a bottom.
I live in the bay area, although it is true there are bidding "wars" going on it is a little different than you think. banks set a base number, Realtors will tell you anything lower is not worth submitting. the end result is the house is "bid up" above the asking price, this looks great on paper but overall the prices are falling. Look at last purchase/refi amount vs listing price after forclosure on each specific property. the $200-300K stuff colapsed a while ago, now we are watching the jumbo loan houses fall and the new price tag is 40-50% less than the top.
I am lender in San diego. The low end of the market has been on fire since last year - as many know speculators and FHA buyers. Mid level has been trudging along and high end is dead.
Not much of a point here except to say that i think the speculation part has played out - first timers have already taken ownership from the speculators - and lenders are controlloing inventory. I'd say we just witnessed our own little "local" bubble run-up. Stupid.
Damn wealthy chinese buying everything up using the paper gain profits that they made from properties they own in mainland China. Its a way for them to diversify their holdings. Soon The United States of America will be the United States of China.
I am afraid to presume - may be the reason for the drop was SNOW?
Zero Hedge Fail.
Jim Cramer has already called the bottom and housing is in full recovery since June 16th, 2009.
C'mon ZH... I suppose you'd also like us all to believe that Dennis Kneale was wrong about the recession being over since June 29th...
Thank God for Cramer. "In Cramer We Trust"! ha ha ha!
This truely is amazing - but I guess the market figures as long as Obama is going to squash forclosure - everyone will be happy because they can remain in their homes. As long as FASB allows accounting that permits banks to market to fantasy - no problem -- all of the homes that nobody is paying for are still valued at underlying mortgage values so everyone is happy.
They have to mark to fantasy, the biggest beneficiary of this fantasy now is the Home Loan Banks for without mythical magical accounting they are insolvent and in need of a massive bailout. We have gone Japanese.
Am I the only dumbass left in America that makes just enough money monthly to cover my mortgage and who is actually using that money to pay it off instead of just saying FU to the banks and living in my house for free??
No. I'm the other one.
Note to the PPT: Your stupid plan to boost the economy by propping up the stock market, is failing. Main street is dying while you continuously shovel money to Wall Street. Let me spell it out to you: The public resents the stock market going up while they are struggling.
"Subprime Mortgage problem is contained"
....Ben Bernanke - March 28, 2007
You do realize he was referring to planet earth, right? The rest of the solar system is being closely monitored...
It's the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man.
He was being philosophical and inside the invisible Bernanke mind bubble was thinking: "CDO's,CDO's...all wrapped up and ready to go."
Mission Accomplished.
I just cannot believe any professional is holding US stocks out of genuine bullishness or even out of confidence the gang is going to continue to support the market. There might be some more sinister reason. Maybe all professionals' trades are being tracked and if someone misbehaves by selling some gets a phone call? Paranoid, paranoid, paranoid. This time justifies being one.
More bad news. Looks like the Pump machine will be used today. Nothing to see here. Like the Progressive insurance woman said..." And were walking , And were walking".
I was in the Californi mortgage business back when the market collapsd last time. The contrasts are amazing - the last time around, we had real price discovery, a determined clearing process by the banks, and many willing borrowers at the price levels that were established - and the banks who were selling off their losses were eagerly writing the new paper - full doc.
oh don't you worry, erin burnett explained it all: weather. unfortunately the snowmageddon has been a february event and, uh, the housing data was for january. so we have artificially low rates, a tax credit and sales fall off a cliff. I can tell you as a resident of nj, homes are not selling in my neighborhood because, for the most part, sellers are in la-la land with respect to their asking price. but, who cares about reality when a cnbc sounbite is so soothing.
Don't worry. This game is going to end sooner than you think. Bernanke & Co are going to realize one of these days "oh SHIT! we ARE the market!" and then all cunty hell is going to break loose.
I am not making a move until CNBC gives the all clear!
"Cunty".....that a pirate term there William?
Regards.
Unexpected
Whew, well at least we have low inventory, this can't last forever. Oh whoops we have a couple years supply based on sales numbers from the peak, uh oh.
At least rates are low, that shouldn't change soon, the invisible hand of the markets will surely fund home loans at the same rates as the magical printing press can.
Then all those above numbers that don't take into account the worst, will deteriorate even further? Nah. I mean so what if everyone will pay higher rates than subprime people are paying now.
Or you could read the writing on the wall and realize the fed ain't going to stop being the home loan market. Or they're very suicidal.
At least new homebuilding isn't adding that much supply as compared to the past decade+, or is that another indicator that things are screwed? :)
QE 2 may be on the way, but it appears from the comments that Quantitative Bitching and Quantitative Moaning have already arrived. If you're looking for scapegoats, you're not trading.....
Divided States - According to the media 90%+ are paying their mortgages regularly. I find this hard to believe, out of my four neighbors I am the only one still paying my mortgage!
I too feel like a fool when paying.
Taking TD's Bloomberg chart & calculating the retracement back from the corrective "up" caused by the gov't stimulus, shows sales have retraced back to a "natural" retracement level. No surprise here after the forced stimulus measures & seasonal factors.
http://charts.dacharts.net/2010-02-26/Lionhead%20home%20sales.png
and news confirmed that cash sales are crowding out FHA and bank sponsored lending. so the banks don't want to lend, and the buyers who want their credit can't match the cash offers. but his is what government wants, they want to place a bid under the market, now they've got it, what do they do?
More accurately it was a drop in "contracts" on existing homes. Those are not actual sales numbers. The NAR has this great con going where everyone things "gee willickers, look at those homes move" but they count courthouse foreclosures repurchased by the banksters as an "existing home sale" plus they also count purchases of forclosed properties as an existing home sale. The numbers are vaporstats. I still hear that 30% of all contracts submitted can not get financing so this is one of those numbers you can assign importance to like number of recalls for Chrysler and GM vehicles. It doesn't mean squat to the big picture as to the true state of real estate sales IMHO. New home sales did tell the tale and that was a drastic revelation for everyone who thought this recovery was real.
The housing market's second leg down is in full affect. It will last another year or so, and then there will be another leg down. 3 legs down. "Great Depression" valuations.
yep .. real estate will find a level that will be the ability of the wage earner ..to put some 20% down ,, be able to pay out of earnings .. no more than 30% of take home ,
look to see real estate take it on the chin for another 20 some years ,,
fluff to fluff illusion to illusion
ucvhost is a leading web site hosting service provider that is known to provide reliable and affordable hosting packages to customers. The company believes in providing absolute and superior control to the customer as well as complete security and flexibility through its many packages. windows vps Moreover, the company provides technical support as well as customer service 24x7, in order to enable its customers to easily upgrade their software, install it or even solve their problems. ucvhost offers the following different packages to its customers.