Everyone is awaiting the miracle signal of a housing bottom. False media-hyped-market-predictions are certain to play an important role in each of our lives. Listed below are a few of the recent indicators that present opportunities for newscasters to call a market improvement or decline.
- May annualized sales pace of home resales expected by NAR are 4.8 million, down 33% from our 2005 peak.
- Annualized new home sales expected for 2009 are 360,000, down 72% from our 2005 peak.
- Depending on your location, average mean home prices are down by 5% to 38% from the 2005/2006 peaks. May 2008 to May 2009 has the worst statistic with a decline of 14.9% on average.
- Commerce Department reported a sales drop of 0.6 percent in new home sales in May.
- Sales of existing home sales rose by 2.4 % from April to May 2009. This represents the third monthly increase this year.
- The number of unsold homes inventory fell 3.5% in May. This means there is a 9.6 month supply of property at the current sales pace. Normal market is 6 months or fewer, however the 3.5% improvement shows signs of market turnaround.
- The worst hit markets are showing inventory improvements. For instance, California has market supply of inventory for average priced homes at a 6 month level. These levels signify a market bottom.
Enough of statistics, the numbers confuse the best economists, let alone you. The bottom line is that real estate has market cycles. What goes up, has its time to go down, and then to stabilize. For those of you who enjoy analogies, we are in the 9th inning of this market downturn. Our next game is market stabilization (usually a 3 year time period). This means prices are somewhat flat while demand and supply equalize.
