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
The idea of a media block is irrational. Would you buy at asking price without asking someone where they think prices are going? Buy for only ONE reason now. You want to live there for nearly the rest of your life AND you can AFFORD it. Depending on rising values is GONE and probably will not return in the next 30 years, when another generation of fools will emerge and those of us in nuring homes will say, See history repeats itself. Madoff will be long dead and the next scam will emerge.
benson — yeah, it is a characature, but I do really believe that they lied horribly about a wide range of things.
Even while lowering the living standard of the working class, they won votes back with gun control, abortion, and a new fear that people (in tenessee?) were the targets of terrorists, and somehow lumped border control into that same fear-mongering, to win more votes at the “politically affordable” expense of a new wave of racism. They drastically de-stablized the middle east, blowing off 50 years of the UN process, and earning the wrath of nearly the entire world, muslim and non-muslim, in the process.
the basic party line economically was that you are supposed to lower taxes and reduce spending. but they increased spending, enriching themselves and their friends, and they only lowered taxes meaningfully for the rich. Plus, they underfunded regulators, leaned on the fed to back their policies, and let tax dodgers go.
They bullied the media to support them, denying them (or threatening to deny them) resources if they did not comply, resulting in our PRIVATE media coming out far more conservative than britain’s state-owned media. not a coincidence.
Anyone who disagreed was labelled an anti-patriot, including a lot of people (e.g. John Kerry) who sacrificed greatly for this country. That was really sad.
I think the republicans did a lot of damage to a what under Reagan was a reasonably good thing, and they were very cynical in the process.
“Dave, question: Are the big banks taking these sales as usable benchmarks for their Level 3 Assets?”
And Whuh ask Dave what happens when the Banks put those Level 3 assets back on the books????
Ker-Boom!!!!!!
” I love the idea that, even though every major bank is insolvent, and the average American household is now deeply in the red, the problem is the media.”
It’s always someone else fault…
The What (Obama is going to buy me a Pony)
Someday this war is gonna end…
ps I love the idea that, even though every major bank is insolvent, and the average American household is now deeply in the red, the problem is the media.
pps How did the Great Society and Vietnam contribue to 60s prosperity? How did reagan’s defense build up and unprecedented peacetime deficits contribute to 80s prosperity? What passes for commentary on this board is really staggering.
Dave, question: Are the big banks taking these sales as usable benchmarks for their Level 3 Assets?
by the way, the answer is you deliver to the rich people, and you lie to the others.
the tax cuts didn’t do anything because they didn’t change anyone’s spending habits.
now we’re in a position where they will, because it’s a different recipient and a different economic situation. if you lower the witholding on the paycheck of someone making 50K or less, it’s getting spent. if it goes to pay a mortgage instead, that’s also a good outcome.
Joe the bummer;
You seem like a reasonable person. Do you really believe that? Does it really help politics in this country to paint the other side as a caricature? How about a conteat of ideas, rather than caricatures?
Glad you could add something to the discussion cornerbodega. What would we do without that insightful mind of yours. You’re humorous but sad at the same time.
Cleanup on aisle 2.
Ive been saying that you can’t argue with the few remaining cheerleaders. Just give it a few more months and they’ll just simply disappear. You can just feel the panic in somebody like Dibs whossoooo desparately trying to make feeble, ignorant positive commentary. Its humorous but sad at the same time…