November home sales: ‘About as god-awful as they can get’
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U.S. home sales and prices continued their rapid descent in November, according to reports out today on resale and new homes. Sales declines were more than anticipated, and the price drop was the steepest monthly decline in four decades. From the New York Times:
“They’re about as god-awful as they can get,†said Robert Barbera, chief economist at ITG. “This is pretty breathtaking stuff.â€
On the numbers:
Sales of existing homes declined 8.6% last month, to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.49 million, according to the National Assn. of Realtors. The median price of a home plunged 13% from October to November, to $181,300 from $208,000 a year ago. That was the lowest price since February 2004 ... The Commerce Department also reported that new home sales dropped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 407,000 in November, from a downwardly revised rate of 419,000 in October. Housing values have plummeted since the peak of the market in July 2006, when the median home price in America was $230,200. The Commerce Department said that the median price of a new home sold in November was $220,400, down 11.5% from the period a year ago. It was the biggest year-over-year price decline since a 12.7% drop in March.
The capper on those existing home sales figures: 45% of all were distressed or foreclosure related. And it isn’t nearly over yet.
-- Lauren Beale
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