Today Fox News says this -
"Housing data released by the Department of Commerce on Friday morning showed that builders continued to slow their construction plans as the health of the entire sector continues to spiral downward.
Housing starts in September were at their lowest level since 1991, falling 6.3% from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted 817,000, the Commerce Department said on Friday. That was a 31% year-over-year decline."
Wow. I know this is bad news if you're in the construction industry or work for most of the major new home builders - DR Horton, Pulte, Centex etc. Is there any possible good that can be seen in this news? I believe the answer is YES!
We needed to slow down the rate at which new homes are being built in order to help stabilize existing home values. As we all know when there is an over supply of inventory the prices have to go down in order to move product. This whole ordeal the last year or so has been painful for all of us, but some of the market principals are slowly taking place. Once we get inventory levels to start decreasingthat will be the biggest indicator that things are really starting to turn around. In the north Texas area we have been very fortunate that the inventory levels aren't too far out of whack - in fact in some areas its normal. However number of days on the market are higher and total number of listings and closed sales are noticeably down from a year ago. With all the national attention on bad housing news and the economy, its hurting peoples mindset when it comes to considering buying or selling their homes right now. Lets keep on educating ourselves about the market, and keep on getting the word out to others that things are looking up and now is a great time to buy!
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