| 'BIG FRANK' SCHULER |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| |
 |
| 1900 Hwy 64 West |
| Murphy, NC 28906 |
| Direct : My cell#: (828)837-0991 Toll free: 877-837-2288 |
| Fax : (828)837-9080 |
| Email |
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
| Daily Real Estate News |
 |
| Home Sweet Home: Sales Up, Prices Down |
|
| November 23, 2009, 11:18 am Home Sweet Home: Sales Up, Prices Down
Here’s a marker on the road to recovery in housing (or at least, to the road away from oblivion):
In the 12 months through October, the National Association of Realtors reports that 4,397,000 existing single family homes were sold. That compares to 4,396,000 in the 12 months ending in October 2008.
That gain, of 1,000 homes or 0.2 percent, is the first such increase reported since the 12 months ended in May 2006.
In that regard, at least, the housing recession can be said to be over. (Assuming, of course, that the tiny increase is not revised away in coming months, or that sales do not fall again.) If so, we can point to ways this downturn did not measure up to the last great housing fall, in the early 1980s.
1. Year-over-year 12-month sales declined for 40 consecutive months. That came in short of the record 44 months,which lasted through April 1983.
2. The largest year-over-year slide in sales was 17.6 percent, in the 12 months through August 2008. That did not come close to the old record decline of 29.3 percent, in the 12 months through July 1982.
3. The decline in sales from the peak 12 months to the lowest 12 months was 31.4 percent. That, too, pales next to the peak decline, in the early 1980s, when the sales totals fell by more than half.
But while sales did not fall by as much, the reason for the two downturns was very different. This was a crisis caused by an inability of people to arrange financing to buy homes, or to sell the ones they had in order to buy a different one. There was no shortage of available sellers, but those sellers could not get the prices they wanted.
The 1980s problem was caused by soaring interest rates, which made homes unaffordable even though prices nationally did not fall very far or for very long. With prices generally holding steady, even if they were not keeping up with inflation, the ability to sell a home and walk away with something was still there in the 1980s.
Sales revived in the 1980s when the recession ended and interest rates fell. This time sales have revived even as prices kept falling, because there are more homes being foreclosed. Many homeowners in trouble cannot sell their homes for what they owe.
The median price of existing homes is still falling on a year-over-year basis, although prices are now a little higher than when they hit bottom during the winter. One way to look at that is that the peak median price was reached in July 2006, and has been lower every month since, a string of 39 months. The old record for that was 11 months. In other words, from the beginning of this data in 1970, there was never a year when the median price did not set a record — until 2007. But 2008 was another such year, and 2009 will be as well.
It is no coincidence that sales have revived primarily in the west, where prices were hit the hardest and where foreclosures have soared. Other regions are still seeing lower sales than before.
Condo sales, by the way, remain down from year-ago-levels, although they did spurt in October.
Mountain View Real Estate Properties in Murphy, NC – “Big Frank” Schuler, Realtor
You can search the Murphy NC MLS (Multiple Listing Service) for Murphy NC Real Estate For Sale, Western NC Real Estate or North GA Real Estate from my Murphy NC Real Estate web site. I know some German and my wife Mary (Hong Phuc) whom I work with is a French and Vietnamese translator. C# (828)837-0991/828-557-7693 |
|
