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
sorry I’m late. Here’s my take on the republicans. How do you knit together a party with:
a) good ol’ boys
b) bible thumpers
c) very rich people
d) people who don’t like mexicans
e) military families
and deliver any kind of cohesive message to them, without falling back on a darkly cynical appeal to people’s basic, shameful self interest?
oh wait. they won twice in a row with that.
dibs — I’m not just pointing out a technicality. the price matters — someone was arguing that the sales were an indication of a bottom. they are not. they are for people who were short (and correct) to deliver to their counterparty to cover the short. people pay about 2c on the dollar for that, after they made maybe 50c on the downside.
these are closed pools of assets. it’s not like buying GE stock at 10 bucks and hoping it goes to 30. once the money’s gone from the pool, it’s gone.
The 1970’s novel about an asshat who buys a crumbling mansion in a crime-ridden area of brooklyn and then sinks his life into restoring it??
A Meaningful Life by L. J. Davis
dittoburg- last post til later, but please repost the name of the book you mentioned the other day about the guy who buys the house in Brooklyn?
“We have had nothing but tax cuts for eight years and where has it gotten us? ”
Actually the economy was going gangbusters. The subprime crisis was not caused by tax cuts. Not to say tax cuts will help us now, but to look at the economy today and identify the cuase as the tax cuts is just plain daft.
“Bush gave us tax cuts and then proceeded to spend like he was Louis the 16th”
Excellent simile!
dibs- I don’t think the dems will save the world but I am still waiting for the Republicans to stop talking like Obama is the anti-christ and how they can regain power. I want to hear them talk about how to fix this realistically, not ideologically. And I want them to talk about what their constiutents need,not what the Party needs.
And now I really do have to get going!
joe….the price doesn’t actually matter. The 20 cents was a good reference point. You are in fact right. Many assets are going for 2 cents. All that matters is that they get sold. The losses are already on the books. Any light at the end of the tunnel in getting things off the books is just that, not an oncoming train.
Bxgrl said: “The Republican party is all about keeping power- not doing what is good for the rest of the country.”
That sums it up in one sentence.
Another nice summary is watching Jindal gets all whiny about spending public funds on natural-disaster monitoring! (A role that is exceptionally appropriate for government, and would not be taken care of by the private sector). And this guy is from Louisiana, of all places!
The Republicans’ disregard for the average American citizen is mind-blowing. Oh, yeah, tax cuts for the rich is THE ANSWER. Just keep giving even more to the super-rich, and taking even more from the middle class, and things will be even more wonderful than they are now! Why not start another war, while we’re at it.
Bxgrl;
Hmmm…I guess we’ll have to just agree to disagree! I think that globalization has been a force for good, despite the bumps in the road. Gotta get some work done today! That’s it for me today.
Snark;
Mount Olympus comment is VERY funny.