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Local Economic - Northwest Indiana

By
Home Builder with 219-465-8352

Nationally there will be some reports released this week:

  • Wednesday, Dec. 27

     

      November New Home Sales (10 a.m. ET)
      [expected: 1.015M / prior: 1.004M]
      Measures how many Americans are buying new homes. Last month sales fell 3.2 percent, down by more than 25 percent in the past year. Builders have recently cut back on groundbreakings, hoping to bring the national supply of new homes on the market down to a level at which prices will stabilize.

     

    Thursday, Dec. 28

     

    • November Existing Home Sales (10 a.m. ET)
      [expected: 6.15M / prior: 6.24M]
      The broadest measure of strength in the housing market. Realtors tell us if people are buying homes for resale. Last month saw an increase in the sales volume - the first time in eight months - but it came after sellers cut prices big time. The median price of a pre-owned home was down 3.5 percent for the year. Experts expect to see continued price drops for November and December

On a  local level, here in Porter County though, where we know the market doesn't exactly follow the rest of the country, November New Homes Sales were stronger than all year.  Obviously the data is a bit more subjective here but wide reports of specs selling and a surge in starts in Portgage and Unincorporated County was a subjective measure of a nice recovery in a normally slow time period.

Where national existing home sales prices dropped 3.5%, locally we didn't see a price drop.  Perhaps a slower turnover of homes and longer DOM but absoultely no price drop, if anything we'll see a marginal increase this year in Northwest Indiana.

It's still a buyer's market here ... but barely.  Actually a pretty nicely balanced market with some builders suffering from over-building in the speculative market, and most others keeping their powder dry for a 2007 recovery.

Comments (1)

Matt Heaton
Timu Corp - CEO, ActiveRain - Co-founder - Bothell, WA
Steve, you should add this post to Consumer - market reports category and add a region to it.  That way it will get you the most exposure to consumers.
Dec 27, 2006 04:43 AM