Home Sales Falling, Condo & Foreclosure Auctions Rising
After a brief head-fake upward in December, the number of existing homes sold in January fell 5.3 percent in January; the January number was slightly higher than November and 8.6 percent lower than a year earlier. And the cheery news doesn’t stop there: The median home price dropped to $170,300, the lowest level since March…
After a brief head-fake upward in December, the number of existing homes sold in January fell 5.3 percent in January; the January number was slightly higher than November and 8.6 percent lower than a year earlier. And the cheery news doesn’t stop there: The median home price dropped to $170,300, the lowest level since March 2003. Given this backdrop, it’s no surprise that condo developers are turning increasingly to companies that specialize in auctions to move blocks of unsold units, as The Times reports today; as the auction trend hits New York, Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel predicts market-clearing prices 40 to 45 percent below the asking prices of a year ago. Meanwhile, sales volume is rising in some of the hardest-hit markets, a sign, theorizes Floyd Norris, that banks are getting more aggressive is their approach to foreclosure sales.
Home Sales and Prices Continue to Plummet [NY Times]
And Do I Hear $2 Million? No? [NY Times]
Foreclosure Sales Continue [NY Times]
Graphic from The New York Times
guys 20c on the dollar is not right. you are off by an order of magnitude. it’s more like 2 cents on the dollar. the toxic assets have almost all stopped paying coupon and they’re in a built-in run-off phase that’s set up to avoid a fire sale of the underlying assets.
I’m talking about CDOs made up of mortgages. these are generally what people mean when they talk about toxic assets. if we ever get to the bar i will literally show you a mark-to-market report. the only reason they have any value at all is that people are buying them to cover shorts.
> “And while Bush may have spent against traditional conservative metrics, his 8 year spending and debt has been surpassed by Obama in 30, give or take, days.”
Nice work discrediting yourself in a single sentence.
The “anti-Republican, they ruined everything & Democrats will save the world” stuff is getting a bit ridiculous. Especially within a government that has multiple branches including the House and Senate.
benson- “Again I’ll ask: how did the Bush tax cuts cause the collapse of the British banking system?”
I’ll answer you by quoting your own words: “What I’m trying to say is that we now live in a globalized economic world.”
So you don’t see how what Bush did here in the States didn’t affect the rest of the world? That’s the meaning of globalization, benson. Effects are up and down, left and right and diagonally.
And fyi- I blame neither China, Japan, Korea, The South- I blame the corporations and the government entities that gave them the incentives and tax breaks to go elsewhere, leaving behind decimated communities and worker. Call me crazy, but if globalization means American workers lose everything, I think it sucks. I pay taxes here. I live here, I spend my money here. I care about the poor all over the world. But making Americans live in poverty is not going to make life better for villages in China.
Millions of jobless in America means those villages in China will eventually lose theirs because the demand for the products they produce will evaporate. It’s already happening. So what happens to them now? They go back to living like they did before? And until world politics becomes more humane and intelligent, economic globalization has not and will not do anything for those places that are the worst- Darfur, e.g. Haiti for another.
Globalization is for corporations and ceos. When things go south, they still have nice cushions to fall back on. They’ve socked away money. They have pensions and good investments. Not so the average guy in any country. SO globalization? Oh, right.
> “sighs, goes back to work. will try again tomorrow.”
returns to mount olympus.
Miss Muffett…he is “predicting” cuts of 40-45%. They aren’t here yet, otherwise you would have pulled the trigger already!!!!!!
Many predictions don’t come true.
I really don’t want to get into a discussion with someone who doesn’t even see how the failed policies and ideas of the past decade have come back to haunt us in a major way.
I agree with Bxgrl and think she stated things beautifully.
The Republicans are becoming relegated to a party of the South, and with each passing day, including sticking Jindal up to speak after Obama’s speech is even further evidence of how incredibly desperate they are to regain relevance. I simply don’t see it happening. I don’t see a Republican resurgence anytime in the near future. And I’m quite happy about it.
I think you need to give Obama a chance and rally every single person in this country behind him if you want to come out of this. Whether you agree with him or not.
Republicans are SO quick to call people out for being un-American.
The true Un-Americans right now are the Republicans.
I can’t help but pull myself out of retirement to note that the NYT article states clearly that the peak of the NYC market was 1st quarter 2008 – whenever I said this in the past, many jumped at me to say oh no, peak was much earlier, despite my close following of the market and my own experience. Cuts of 40-45% are in line with Team Bear’s long-standing predictions, and as the article states, the period of denial is now over. (and by the way, these cuts are happening in “prime areas” of Manhattan so the old “prime areas will be spared” argument” is not panning out).
passes ball…. rest of players have started fistfight over something unrelated to game…. ball comes to rest out of bounds
sighs, goes back to work. will try again tomorrow.