Yesterday, December 10, the National Association of Realtors® released its existing-home sales report for October. Keep in mind these are numbers of contracted sales, not closed sales. There is about a two-month difference. For example, a recent closed sales report in many cases was dismal, because it reflected sales activity when the mortgage crisis reached its peak - August. Yesterday's report was more upbeat, so let's see what the media do to it.
Here is a link to whole report: http://tinyurl.com/2calxw.
NAR's chief economist, Lawrence Yun, makes a number of good points, but overall he sees sales increasing in 2008 - at least for existing homes. New-home sales will continue to be in the doldrums into 2009. He also points out that in nearly two-thirds of the metro areas across the country there were price increases this year, and "decreases" often resulted from significantly less activity in high-value areas of the country. He expects price appreciation to "return to more normal patterns in 2009."
Hot markets in October: Gary-Hammond, Indiana, Binghamton, New York, Corpus Christi, Texas, and Spokane, Washington. How was yours?
Read the report. Then you can better understand just what's happening in real estate today.
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