Pending Home Sales Drop in January
In yet another sign that the housing market is deteriorating, January Pending Home Sales not only fell from December, but they were also down from January of 2010.
Monthly Archives: February 2011
Reflections on Flying Monkeys
Greg Swan, super Phoenix bull drones on with 21 preposterous reasons why Phoenix will not crash. All of his reasons were rebutted at the time and in detail by myself and others so many times and in so many places, I could fill up pages listing them.
Thursday Real Estate Reading Looking Up?
The Double-Dip (Probably) Stops Dipping in March – Redfin We’re one of the only ones who are more optimistic. We recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that housing numbers through February would be “woeful,” but that we expected the double-dip to stop dipping in March. Do we still feel that way? Mostly. Demand was stronger [...]
Existing Home Sales Rise in January
Existing-home sales, which are completed transactions that include single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, increased 2.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.36 million in January from a downwardly revised 5.22 million in December, and are 5.3 percent above the 5.09 million level in January 2010. This is the first time in seven months that sales activity was higher than a year earlier.
Case-Shiller: Home Prices Approaching 2009 Troughs
Today’s Case-Shiller Home Price Report confirms a sharp contraction in home prices during the second-half of 2010. Home prices are only slightly above their 2009 lows and will likely reach new lows in the coming months. From Standard and Poors: New York, February 22, 2011 – Data through December 2010, released today by Standard & [...]
Distressed Sales On The Rise in January
Perhaps the biggest news in the January data was a sharp rise in the HousingPulse Distressed Property Index or DPI, a key indicator of the health of the housing market. The DPI, or share of total transactions involving distressed properties, climbed from 47.2% in December to 49.6% in January. The increase was a continuation of a trend as the DPI registered just 44.5% back in November.
A Random Walk Around the Frontlines
I hope there are members of the FOMC who will vote “hell no” at the next Fed meeting. Further, if we leave rates too low for too long, what will the Fed do when this business cycle comes to its end, as they always do? We need to put some bullets back into the Fed arsenal. It is time to start thinking about raising rates.