Homes Sales, New Starts Fall
October wasn’t a good month overall for real estate, except for the buyers who snagged thousands of great deals thanks to the sliding house values we’ve seen this past year.
According to the National Association of Realtors and as reported by MSNBC.com, existing home sales dropped by 3.1 percent in October.
Nationwide sales of existing homes fell more than expected last month, as economic fears made buyers leery even though prices plunged to the lowest level in more than four years.
The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales of existing homes fell 3.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.98 million units in October, from a downwardly revised pace of 5.14 million in September.
My own sales in October are typically strong, but like the rest of the country they too were down somewhat in 2008.
Following this same pattern, new home construction has also slowed to where it was 50 years ago,
Construction of new homes plunged last month to the lowest level on records going back nearly 50 years as U.S. builders slashed production while Wall Street nosedived.
While the “experts” are saying the decline is unexpectedly large, I view it as a necessary evil to level the market. The number of houses available now far exceed the number of buyers. This is one of the reasons home prices are dropping - ye olde supply v. demand economics are well into play.
On the flip side, fewer sales at mega stores like Lowes and Home Depot, fewer jobs for workers at these stores and at construction sites, few manufacturing jobs making nails, light fixtures, etc. have trickled down and is causing our economy great pain. But reflecting to 50 years ago, home sales did recover then… and they will again. Patience, grasshopper.
Photo by Lee Coursey through Flickr Creative Commons.
November 24th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
[…] Homes Sales, New Starts Fall While the “experts” are saying the decline is unexpectedly large, I view it as a necessary evil to level the market. The number of houses available now far exceed the number of buyers. This is one of the reasons home prices are dropping - ye olde supply v. demand economics are well into play. […]
November 25th, 2008 at 3:38 am
[…] Homes Sales, New Starts Fall - Real Estate Investing […]