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
Benson,
Glad to see I’m not the only one on the internet (or in this city for that matter) that is gaga for Obama.
I’ll buy you a beer with my Obama stimulus tax credit 😉
In fact, because of the globalization that has benefitted developing Asian nations, those countries are in far better stead than they ever were. They are consuming more “western” consumer goods (toothpaste comes to mind at the very low end) and their economies are in far better position to withstand things than they were back in the 1990s with all of the Asian currency devaluations. This will have a positive knock-on effect to the developed world as we inch out of the recession.
As a barometer, Asian stock markets (developing) are doing far, far better than the developed world Y-T-D. Some, in fact are up between 2 and 24 percent.
11217;
Again I’ll ask: how did the Bush tax cuts cause the collapse of the British banking system?
“These hack politicians can rail all they want in their attempts to garner votes, but they are creating false dichotomies and issues.”
I would have to say that from your perch at the top of globalization you probably can’t see what life is really like here on the ground. Iraq was a false dichotomy that has cost us billions- is that part of the globalization you are so fondly speaking of?
(out now- off to try to get work.)
Benson,
You conveniently left off the Bush tax cuts, followed by what looks to be a near collapse of the United States Financial System.
I agree with Snark.
Surpassed by Obama for very different reasons. The economy is crashing and burning, millions of people are losing jobs and homes, and you’re still living in the 1980s-90s. When did you stop noticing the world has drastically changed?
Bxgrl;
Where to begin? Let me try.
You talk about “shipping jobs overseas”. I work in the manufacturing sector, for a Japanese company. In that line of work, I travel sometimes to Malaysia, where alot of electronic “contract manufacturers” are now located. When you go there, you see that these factories are making things for American, European and Japanese companies, in the same building!! In other words, the outsourcing of manufacturing to low-cost SE Asian countries is a global phenomenon, irrespective of the party in power in the Western economies. So, it might make for a great campaign speech to say that “we’re going to stop shipping jobs oversea”, but the reality of economics is different. I remember that when I was a kid all the governors of the northeast states used to rail that “we’re going to stop the exodus of manufacturing jobs to the the South”. Nothing but political BS, just like to talk of “stopping the flow of jobs to China” (the current favorite whipping boy). Remember how 15 years ago Japan was the whipping boy?
You speak about the relaxation of regulations on Wall Street. Please be specific. Which regulation, and how did it cause this problem? How does it compare to the UK and their policies,where the same melt-down ocurred?
I’m not trying to put anybody down. What I’m trying to say is that we now live in a gloablized economic world. Nothing is going to stop it, and it is a GOOD thing, as it raises the standard of living in formerly poor countries. These hack politicians can rail all they want in their attempts to garner votes, but they are creating false dichotomies and issues.
Tax cuts do work. As benson pointed out, JFK and Reagan, tax cuts come from both sides of the aisle.
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. In addition, Bush inherited a recession brought on by the dotcom collapse and then Sept 11. No bailouts, and we rebounded.
As for Jindal, he is basically the Republican version of Obama. However, Jindal has experience running a government (and his tax cuts on LA have seen that state grow faster than ever seen before).
Things were rather differnet when Reagan was president, don’t you think? Bush gave us tax cuts and then proceeded to spend like he was Louis the 16th. Even my cat could figure out that less income and more spending = massive deficit. Simple concept. Since we would up with a massive national debt, one would understand the very simple idea: tax cuts did not work. There is no such thing as trickle-down economics and the increasing separation of haves and have nots has been much remarked upon. The middle class is slowly (or not so slowly) disappearing. Yet you keep touting Reagan. And Conservative ideas of fiscal managemnt. I understand conservatism and smaller government but seems to me the Republicans didn’t get down the management thing very well.
Yet now they are all too happy to try to work against the new President and destroy anything he tries to do. Because the Republican party is all about keeping power- not doing what is good for the rest of the country. Why should I believe in or trust what they say now when their whole way of running the country was “do as I say, not as I do?”