Just what everyone I have been talking to on Active rain suspected...question is will it keep going or stall?
A separate report showed home prices falling during the first three months of this year at the sharpest rate in two decades. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index fell 14.1 percent in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, the biggest year-over-year decline since the index began in 1988.
The Commerce report on new home sales showed the April rebound was led by a huge 41.7 percent surge in sales in the Northeast. Sales were up 8.3 percent in the West and 5.8 percent in the Midwest. The only region which saw a decline in sales in April was the South, where sales fell by 2.4 percent.
The inventory of unsold new homes edged down slightly to 10.6 months' supply at the April sales pace, compared with 11.1 months in March. However, the April level was still about double the inventory level that was normal during the five-year housing boom.
That boom ended in 2005 and since that time the housing industry has been struggling in a tough environment with falling sales and prices and rising mortgage defaults.
I expect the numbers to go up and down for the next 12 months or so. There is still going to be fallout as ARMs reset, and that inventory will have to be absorbed. After another six months or so, we should be well on the way into the next upswing in the real estate "cycle", albeit a modest one.
Steve, We need all the good news we can get. Maybe some of this will start tipping some buyers off the fence.
Bill/Michael - yea..time for a rebound. I think the new homes in Vegas have bottomed out, and feel the banks are not being realistic with the REO/Foreclosure prices yet. I see 10-15% possible drop further on those previously mentioned homes
Steve, it's time for a rebound - complete....more and more buyers are coming into Arizona to purchase a home....;-)
Steve, I saw that in the paper. Good news, at the end of the day, despite all, people still need a place to live! With the growing of San Antonio, I'm looking forward to it!
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