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Median US New Home Price Has Biggest 3 Month Drop Ever
There is only one notable data point in today's release of new home sales, which, and this should not come as a surprise to anyone, continue to crawl along the floor with just 313,000 houses sold. The datapoint is the median home price, which tumbled from $210,900 to $204,400. This is certainly the lowest number in 2011, and is just modestly off the decade low record in October 2010. And it gets worse: the 3 month drop in median home prices is the biggest ever. Regardless: we are confident this will force the Comcast-based, housing "bottom-callers" to call yet another bottom shortly.
Median monthly new home prices:
3 Month change:
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Bullish. This means new home buyers have more cash to invest in CMG.
Housing will continue to slide, until we stop bleeding jobs. Both go hand and hand
http://www.dailyjobcuts.com
/
Bleeding jobs, just a symptom of the mortally wounded terminal economy.
For those who are still on the sidelines regarding further fiscal and monetary stimulus, I hope this chart demonstrates the CRISIS in aggregate demand that America is facing. I'm sorry to say it, but HARP is simply insufficient to stimulate adequate demand for real estate. Boosting real estate prices is NOT a simple endeavour and it will require maturity and perseverance from our Federal Reserve and government officials, which I regret to say has been lacking as of late. Our Fed officials need to severely ramp up MBS monetization and congress needs to consider expanding HARP to illegal aliens if necessary. Its time we lived up to the devastating implications of a decline in real estate prices and faced this problem head on so that our children do not have to pay the price for our indecisiveness.
How about we just let the market work. We need a reset
The Census series isn't worth much, it's a painfully small sample size, only covers single family homes, and doesn't take into account contract cancellations.
Plus, volume is so low that the median price is going to be impacted by unit mix (types and sizes of homes selling). A better way to look at it is price per square foot, which for all new homes has been stabilizing as we go into fall at about $160 per square foot. By way of comparison it got down to $128 per square foot in November 2009, the low.
A house should be max $50/SqFt - i.e. double what it costs to build it - unless you're an empire, a paper tiger, who produces and exports less than it import and consumes - in which case you need sector bubbles, like a dotcom-bubble, a military contractor and waepons manufacturers-bubble (orchestrated by war after war), and housing-bubble and stocks & bonds bubbles (yet to POP)....
forget EU bank troubles - focus on US Empire garbage paper troubles... they will explode in your face this winter - and yes, home prices/equity and thus US real asset holdings will continue to deteriorate because they're still significantly over prized relative to real income and real employment and real gdp, none of which will improve - because empires do not improve, i.e. correct their immoral exploitations - they fade and crash and die.
I agree entirely. Jobs have NOTHING to with housing, unless your job is...you guessed it: building houses! However the vast majority of the unemployment in the US is NOT in the construction industry.
What should be done is also what's political suicide: dismantle and liquidate Fannie and Freddie, end all housing subsidies, let the market crash by another whatever it will be, 30-50%. So a $700K house becomes a $300K house that people can afford. The declining property taxes will force states to liquidate their debt (or raise taxes, unfortunately).
Basically a reversal of the Austrian "false boom"/"business cycle" that lasted from 2001-2007.
Raising house prices by artificial means is an extremely expensive and inefficient Keynesian/Central Planning whatever idea.
I am not convinced by Austrian economics, but I do call "BS" whenever anyone links housing to jobs.
Many lawyers, etc. healthcare people are unemployed and they have nothing whatsoever to do with housing.
There will never be real demand for real estate until the price is allowed to fall in line with income. Real estate has been artifcially inflated for a few years now and HARP will only make it worse. Real estate NEEDS to crash
F**k Yeah!
Perhaps if the PTB stopped harping everything would be fine?
this doesn't go anywhere near far enough. We need to expand to foreigners who don't even live here. Home ownership is a basic HUMAN right and expanding that to more diversity must be a firm priority for the US. We daily see pictures and video of africans squatting in huts and on the dirt; why not provide them with housing? It will put America back to work. Additionally, HARP must be expanded to include 2nd, 3rd, and 4th houses. Families these days, especially mexican ones, are very large and housing can be cramped, so additional units can be owned with the government backstopping the loans, which will have vast economic benefits. I mean, who doesn't own 3 or 4 cars now and those need to be garaged someplace, don't they? This solution kills a lot of birds with just one stone.
LOL... +1
Home ownership is NOT a basic human right. Only responsible people should own homes. The subprime problem was created because we tried to get everyone to own a home. Very bad idea!
... and US Empire needs boddies (he with the most people eventually wins) - so open US borders and give no-income-necessary-home-loans to everybody - THEN, US EMpire can continue to create 100x leverage and sell it to the people who work in this world: China and Germany - oops, maybe they're not so eager to buy garbage paper anymore -
allright sell US garbage paper to Martians - who're expected to arrive on the scene any day now as US Empire collapses and needs massive distractions to occupy its citizens....
There is probably nothing else in the history of the human race that has been more subsidized, propped-up, encouraged, nervously monitored, tinkered with and plied with government involvement than housing.
And yet housing is at the very root of the debt-fueled global economic fiasco we’re in.
And if we ever want to know how it was possible that such a mess ever occurred in the first place, we need look no further than asshats like you continually calling for MORE government involvement, and more involvement from the private banking cartel, the Federal Reserve.
It’s dispiriting and discouraging to think we may never get out of the mess that asshats like you have brought upon us. Though I suspect generating discouragement is why you've been sent here to begin with.
Take your aggregate demand Keynesian bullshit and shove it in your ass, back where it came from.
Yeah, its too bad there isn't some kind of jobs bill that the congress could pass.
Oh wait...
It'll slide well beyond that point since so many people were burned last time around.
It's worse than anyone is reporting (except me):
September New Home Sales: Ends the Worst New Home Selling Season in Historyour job market WAS housing for over a decade. Everybody worked in something connected to that.
Bullish and TRANSITORY ... as NAR will no doubt explain shortly.
Case shiller dead on. CHANGE? YES WE CAN!
In another twenty months houses will be free!
Zero down, no incoem, no assets and no-need-to-pay your mortgage ....this is where it gets you.
Exactly, no surprise it beat the 300k exp, lower the price = find more buyers, hence a supply shortage. According to the findings anyway
And the front page of proaganda cnbc report.....
Praise the Lord! Now won't you buy me a Benz!
Biggest ever, bitchez.
Refi bitchez. Oops too far underwater. Jingle mail bitchez
its time for an avatar change.
Lemme guess....WILDLY bullish?
Is this what happens as people drop off of Extended Unemployment?
7-10 more years of price declines will bring the US housing market back to where it should be 2day..
Yep, and still the economy will be dead, unless we get a new economy where the govt prints money and hands it to everyone to order fast food to employ more delivery drivers.
Might not take that long. The key point is acceptance that the avg new home will be 2000 sq feet. The vacant 4000 sq foot homes will likely be bulldozed after they become a hazard.
Would you like a McMansion with those fries?
New home size? My guess is 1,200 -1,500 sq ft, 2-3br, 1 or 1 1/2 bath ... About 1955 -1970 sizes, iows. On lots sizes of 1/4 acre or less, depending on location in US.
If you buy one make sure it has good sun exposure and soil for a back yard garden/fruit trees... and make damn sure they don't use pressed wood on the roof or siding, hold out for plywood.
"The key point is acceptance that the avg new home will be 2000 sq feet."
Your thinking is still affected by bubble conditions.
When people figure out they can raise a family very nicely in 1100 sq feet,
2000 sq ft will once again be a mansion. When 21st century tax reality sets
in, not many will be able to afford them.(like in the 50's)
Perhaps someone will figure out how to make money ripping off those stupid
French hip roofs, add a second story to convert 4000 sq ft abortions into very
nice 4plexes.
This will only work where public transportation makes them accessible to jobs,
otherwise they will be bulldozed as you predict.
Affordable housing bullshit here we come!
Some worry about criminals, gang bangers, bikers, and zombies when TSHTF. I worry about 55 year old Re/Max agents that have fallen much further down the lifestyle scale. They are really going to be angry and desperate.
Indeed. The modern world has never witnessed hordes of white-collar barbarians in expired-lease Mercedes S300s, predating upon the last remnants of civil society. "Going Postal" may be replaced in the vernacular with "Falling Down Moment."
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_a51NfzEFgKc/S7Mj3hWOW2I/AAAAAAAAEVo/x_pIztLP8p...
Don Brinam
"Falling Down Moment" well said
great movie!
Now that's an avatar.
+1
you should use it ! .. If not would you mind if i get next dibs ?
Not at all -- William Foster is all yours...and never forget the old expression: the customer is always right.
http://packerchatters.com/wp-content/uploads/5894308409_52b7d485f2_z.jpg
Bullish for REO mgrs and agents that is.
Homes are still 33% overvalued when priced in gold. Buy at your peril.
Home ownership is a crummy investment for most Americans whom are hamstrung by uncertain job markets, as well as county, municipal, and state taxes that are increasing all the time. If you own a home and are not using it to produce income, you are better off leasing where you can stay mobile and liquid, says I.
Anyway - pass the peas suckers
I agree, 100%.
Many people stay mobile by living in their car.
Well said Josh!
and in an ever more apparent manipulation, /es melts up 13 points overnight on zilch volume, so that when the case-shiller is released and drops on the news. it is still up 5.
wonder how high it will float before greek bond default?
Bloomberg said it was a good sign as they reported some other metric which had nothing to do with reality...Newsflash!!! Residential housing will not bottom until atleast 2016 unless QE 'to the moon' kills the market in real terms...My guess...A monster box will buy a Las Vegas Condo when it's over...BOOOYAAA!!!
Defaltion in everything you don't need, inflation in everything you do.
Tyler, could we see the same chart for the price of undeveloped, but arable land? Looking around my neck of the woods, this has gone through the roof. Amazing, people still need to eat, imagine that.
The reality not being faced by the NAR and the "recovery" shills in the Administration is that the median household income is south of $50k and falling. At the old (and sane) method of affordability = 2.5X gross income (or now $125k), we have a long way to go.
median affordabilty: $125k
median all home sales: $164
median new home sales: $203K
but with this 5 year ARM, I can afford a $500K home and since home prices always go up, I can easily refi at the end of the 5 years to maybe a 3 year ARM, and take some cash out. and after those 3 years, cash out re-fi again.. I mean, that NAR guy told me prices ALWAYS go up...
right?
Great business plan, but to maximize gubment benefits make sure you are "undocumented" and you might want to factor in a race change operation.
food stamps up 30%
"Can I use food stamps as my down payment? I'm not worried about my mortgage...I'll never have to pay that....right?"
The guy down the street asked me...this is the new thinking out there....
I have an acquaintance who is selling a home due to affordability. I told him to squat there. I think forced government cramdowns are coming. People will eventually wind up getting their homes paid off by the government.
I don't think our political system can take 5 more years of this housing market. Mitt or Perry will just wipe out principle in 2013 and force banks to write it down. They will frame it as supporting families.
We may not like it but it seems inevitable. It will vaporize the US credit rating but it will be done, median prices will need to come down to about 125 K. So that is about 3 trillion...which would have sounded insane prior to 1.5 trillion per year deficits. Now it just sounds like a doubling of the deficit for 2 years. big deal.
You'll know we've come back to reality (a production-based economy rather than a real-estate consumption economy) when we start calling them 'houses' again. I was startled to arrive in the UK in the late 90s and find that they called them 'houses', never 'homes' (though the real-estate industry there worked hard to install the 'home' word there as well). I've heard 'vacant homes', even 'abandoned homes'. I must say I never heard 'crack home' or 'home of prostitution'.
It's not a house, it's a home. --Bobby Zimmerman
I don't know if calling it a house brings people back to reality. I think you'll know you're back to reality when people expect their homes to depreciate (not counting inflation adjustment) on a yearly basis. This makes sense since the elements (i.e. time/weather) chip away at value daily. When people buy houses to live in and start families rather than profit/flip. When they buy because the ratio of their income to desire to buy are in balance. That's when they'll be at fair value. Right now it's all shills saying, "this is the bottom, if you want to make profit from your home buy now!"
We just tried that. That's not what houses are for.
We can't all deliver pizza's to one another...can we?
OK, you first.
A large salami, onions and mushrooms, and a few of those powdered cheese packets. Gotta get my rda of salt, ya know.
I'm looking for some venture capital (or a government grant) to start turning McMansions into multi-family rental. The trend is your friend!
I should just declare bankruptcy on my CC debt; before the threat was if you did that, you wouldn't be able to get a loan for a car or house.
I'll never be able to afford either, minus winning a WSOP bracelet, so what's the fucking point?
All of the noise of "better-than-expected" as usual drowns out the salient information embedded within the report.
Through September 2011, NOT-seasonally adjusted, there have been 236,000 new home sales. Through September 2010, there were 256,000 new homes sold. We are nearly 8% below last year's running total.
New homes for sale at the end of September 2011 numbered 165,000, down 39,000 or 19% from the same month in 2010.
Green shoots- Cramer will certainly be orgasmic over this. Maybe issue some buys on homebuilders
The sperm bank is hiring
and Tonights European Bazooka might look something like this ::
http://markettechnicals-jonak.blogspot.com/2011/10/european-bazooka-revealed.html
Ocotober 2010 decade low: that was then, this is now: housing affordability is what's changed as the cost structure of ownership has risen dramatically in just one year. Factor in the general cost of living increase and rapidly declining real median income and you can tell where the vector is pointed.
Bottom line: they can do their mortgage refi schemes but it won't get the consumer out of the biflationary quicksand.
Exactly, plans like the HARP modification will just kick the can down the road a bit and cause a bigger crash and foreclosure explosion later
"Big bottoms! Big bottoms! Talk about bum-cakes my girl's got 'em! Big bottoms drive me out of my mind! How can I leave this.......behiiiind?"
Adjust your meds?
I hear that Larry Yun is performing oral sex on anyone that closes on a home before 2012.
The only homes selling in my neck of the woods (non-foreclosure that is) are those that are priced around 60-70% of replacement value. The continued price deterioration will not end until the banks are forced to realize their losses (mark to market - politically unfeasible) or the US defaults on its debt thereby bringing down the whole house of cards.
'cos I know you guys love charts that slope downwards, here's one I maintain for the UK housing market:
http://i43.tinypic.com/o603dk.jpg
Purple Line = UK average of Nationwide and Halifax house price surveys, corrected for RPI inflation
Red Line = Northern Ireland average of the same data
Grey shading = recessions
Grey Line = Population of 40-42 year olds taken from ONS data - great correlation, dontcha think?
I'm buying when it bottoms out ~2015 (possibly as late as 2018).
I sold my house of 7 years in January (for a tidy little profit). We've been renting in a way better part of town in a bigger house, paying about $200 more than my old house payment was. After paying off every debt I had in the world, we put every last penny into physical gold and silver. Once I broke free of the heavy brainwashing/conditioning that it is every American's dream to "own" a home, the choice was easy. This was the smartest decision I've made in my adult life, and feel like I absolutely threaded the needle on this whole deal. I sleep well at night these days.
As an aside, the folks who bought my house were a young newlywed couple. They only put down 2.5%!! Fuck me, I was shocked, I thought we had done away with those type of loans. Silly me. Then there was haggling over whether my house was in the flood plain or not, because it would increase their insurance/escrow payment 25$ a month, which was going to be a deal breaker for them. I had a survey done, it was just outside of the flood plain, so the deal went through. But my wife and I were just in shock that, in this shitty economy, someone would buy a home, when they only could afford 2.5% down, and ultimately came down to whether they could make an extra 25$ payment a month, as to whether they could afford the thing at the end. It's like what P.T. Barnum said...
Glad you came through it on your feet. You made the right choices for foggy, difficult times. Your gold will immunize your buying power from the crush that's taking place and decimating people. I share your shock at the crap that's still going on with the credit game in the housing market. It's coming down to gambling with huge stakes for people who can least afford to gamble like a new married couple. Yipes.
The aprroach to sell a house now is the same as selling a car...the salesperson asks,"so what can you afford to pay per month?"....
TORONTO — Canadian home resale prices rose in August, their ninth consecutive monthly gain, taking the index to a record high, according to a report on Wednesday.
The Teranet-National Bank Composite House Price Index, which measures price changes for repeat sales of single-family homes in six metropolitan areas, showed overall prices were up 0.9 % in August from July.
Overall prices were up 5.4 % from a year earlier.
The index tracks home prices over time for repeat sales, so properties with at least two sales are required in the calculations. The report did not provide actual prices.
How about a chart that goes further back than 2009?
Where's the GOOD NEWS?
Let's get with it. We've got a president to re-elect!
TD- you better get on this bandwagon or we are going to be TIVOing your perp walk next year.
sales of new homes are up, according to the news just now, prices are down, go figure.
Boomers selling into oldage won't help prices either.
SOLUTION: 90 year mortgage at 4% cuts monthly payments by 60% and increases buyers leverage.