New Home Sales Hit 7-Year Low
September 27th, 2007The whole show is rigged to blow.
Via: CNN:
The pace of new home sales fell to a seven-year low in August, according to a government report Thursday that showed the battered housing and home building markets even weaker than forecasts.
New homes sold at an annual pace of 795,000 in August, according to the Census Bureau, down 8 percent from the revised 867,000 sales pace in July.
It was the slowest pace of sales since June 2000, as buyers had trouble finding mortgages or selling their existing homes. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast that sales would fall to a pace of 825,000.
The report also showed the median price of a new home fell 7.4 percent from year earlier levels to $225,700 in the month, as prices were pressured by both the problems in mortgage finance and the excess supply of homes on the market.
The inventory of new homes on the market rose to an 8.2 month supply, as the glut of completed homes without a buyer was near a record high, with 180,000 completed homes listed for sale, just off the record high of 182,000 set in May of this year.
The July report wasn’t the only month revised lower by the Census Bureau; it also dropped its sales estimates for May and June, leaving sales 34,000 below the previous estimates.
And in Australia:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/brickworks-sits-tight-on-land/2007/09/27/1190486483305.html
“Residential starts will shrink by 3000 to 148,000 in 2007-08, with NSW set to enter its most prolonged housing construction downturn since the Great Depression.”
Of course, rising interest rates aren’t helping, as the article goes on to say…