September 28, 2007

FLASH: New home sales plunge again - down 21% vs. last year, prices crash at least 8% but nobody knows...


Everything's fine. Housing is in a soft landing. There was no bubble. Now's a great time to buy! There's never been a drop in the US median home price. Housing is your best investment. Renting is throwing money away.

Remember the idiots who used to post such dribble on this blog? Meanwhile, if you bought a new home in the past couple of years, technically, on paper, you're probably bankrupt.

Hat-tip to Doom for the chart that's worth a million realtors on commission... Too bad we can't get real pricing information though. This report is 100% bullsh*t when it comes to that as they don't include the firesale incentives. Prices are probably down another 20% or more than we're hearing...

And I love the MSM reporting the 8.3% drop from LAST MONTH. Uh, MSM, you look at YEAR OVER YEAR in this business. Idiots.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Sales of new US homes slid 8.3 percent in August to their lowest level in seven years, Commerce Department data showed Thursday in yet another sign of the troubles in the real estate market.

The report showed new-home sales at a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 795,000, worse than market expectations of a decline to a rate of 825,000.

The pace of new-home sales is down 21.2 percent from a year ago.

Also, the median sales price fell to 225,700 dollars, an 8.3 percent decline from the previous month and a level not seen since January 2005.

"This is just hideous," said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at High Frequency Economics.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

they quote whichever data looks best, just like Wall Street does for itself! it's sick what has happened to business ethics in the U.S.!

GT said...

this is confusing, sales AND median price are down 8.3%?
i dont even pay attention to cnbc or headlines anymore, i just assume they are using the most optimistic number they could find and triple the numbers in my mind

Anonymous said...

.
.



Question? **


Isnt the US home market the LEADING economic indicator on how well things are going in America? (which also means the White House)... yes?

I say we dumb these chumps NOW! Impeach bush and cheney. Get them the hell out of there. Our elected officials need to vote on this in DC ASAP, Like NOW! AN OVERNIGHT EMERGENCY CRISIS SESSION! For cris sakes! SAVE AMERICA! OPEN YOUR EYES! SHOUT at any rep[ublican representative! VOTE TO IMPEACH NOW!

Our last chance! .......

Anonymous said...

As for reporting the 21% vs. last year compared to the 8.3% in a month, the 8.3% is actually _worse_ since its rate of decline is greater (8.3 percent per month for 12 months would give 1-(1-0.083)^12 or a 65% annual drop... IMFG, now that's a lot.

Anonymous said...

Now we are seeing a real housing market without the flippers, fraudsters, and zero-down losers. The past few years have been proven to be nothing more than a ponzi scheme. All the while, the retarded REIC stooges keep waiting for a return to the "normal" market of 2003-2006.

They had that old REIC hack Barbara Corcoran on CNBC the other day. She said that the 100% rise in prices in bubble areas was driven by fundamentals. The reality is that the non-bubble areas were normal, not lagging.

Anonymous said...

Unless *fundamental* changes are made across the entire residential housing sector, it will never makes sense to become a house debter.

Anonymous said...

DO HPers think HUD will somehow get invloved in this thing once the 10 million existing but unoccupied homes number is cracked?

The way to dispose of these homes will be with raffles that are kind of like the state lottery but localized. A $250K McManison could be sold if 25,000 tickets for $10 each are sold. If an 18 year old that decides to make it a meth lab wins the house so be it....at least it will have been paid for with REAL MONEY instead of borderline criminal financing scams. HP did recently do an entry about illegals and grow houses in the burbs so would the lottery system really "bring down the quality of life"?

Anonymous said...

i punch in 2 google ads at every visit takes 8 seconds..i enjoy hitting the re-financing ones the best...the best housing crash site on the web..cheers keith

Anonymous said...

I'm a boomer trying to sell my 1k sq ft CT shitbox for 300k.

Was thinking of targeting the illegal immigrant community, as I understand someone in a highbrow business mag recently mentioned something like this (love the MSM, they're watching out for me!).

Got a sign that says "Se habla español", which I'm not really sure what it means, but that's ok. Any other suggestions?

Anonymous said...

Finally people are coming clean and saying hey, this is going to take years. Before it was always it will recover in the next selling season. Now an optimist is one who thinks bottom hits in late 08 and recover will occur after an unpredictable time period of staying on the bottom (which after inflation means you're still losing value)!!

Anonymous said...

That's a big dump on the NAR's favourite figure - the median sales price.

I'd lost track of that one. What does it mean? The high end is coming down? Or the low end is stone dead?

Anonymous said...

hideously awesome!!!

pwnd

Anonymous said...

Not that is related but, here is very interesting quote from Ron Paul - from 2002.

"However, despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government’s
interference in the housing market, the government’s policies of diverting capital to other
uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in
housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience
difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will
also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had
government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing. 7/16/02"

Anonymous said...

fooled me twice said...

"Our elected officials need to vote on this in DC ASAP, Like NOW!"
-------------------------

Vote on what? There is nothing for the feds to do now but stay the F**k out of it. The government has already caused enough damage. (See anonypuss 5:50's great Ron Paul quote above.)

What kind of bailout do you want?

Oh, I forgot . . . if a bailout is not in the form of a direct transfer of wealth, it's not really a bailout.

I.e., if you run a bailout through the fed, or through Fat Fanny or Fat Freddy, or some other intermediary, then it is too difficult for the braindead public to trace the "recovery" back th their empying pockets.

Anonymous said...

Hey hey.

Woo HOO!!

Millions of people will lose their homes!!

YEAY!!

You people are sick.

Anonymous said...

Vote on what? There is nothing for the feds to do now but stay the F**k out of it. The government has already caused enough damage.

What kind of bailout do you want?
*********************************

I'm talking about a vote of impeachment! What is wrong with you people? Cant you see that bush and cheney have destroyed America piece by piece? (although many people followed hitler to the very end - because hitler was a christian - wanting to get rid of all the evil-doers - until it was to late.

What more can bush and cheney destroy before our elected officials wake-up?

We are doomed! WAKE-UP CITIZENS!

Anonymous said...

Millions of greedy/moronic people will lose their homes and go back to renting. There are worse tragedies in the world.

Although, with their dipsh!$ Option ARM/Neg Am loans they were pretty much doing that anyway. So you see, nothing will really change for them.

Anonymous said...

I think the numbers are even worse.
The median price is down 8.3% in US Dollars. The buying power of the US Dollar is dropping even faster than home prices. It's a double whammy!!

Anonymous said...

The only people who are going to lose their homes are those who invested in the latest ponzi scheme - housing. Just like I have no sympathy for the greedy bastard who loses money on a MLM pyramid, I have none for a family who paid $750K for a 1500sqft. house in the middle of Orange County, CA. After all, it was their willingness to pay those ridiculous prices that kept this thing going; and consequently me out of owning a home for the last five years. So yes, I’m happy the market is returning to normal – the quicker the better!

pwnd

Anonymous said...

It is never an opportune time to get into a business transaction such as buying a residential property or otherwise when it is based on unconscionable reporting, manipulation of the facts and the generation of fabricated and baseless euphoria to purchase an asset. Consumers need to do their homework, research, study the market, negotiate, have the strength to not accept what is offered and communicate to other of what a sham game these concepts really are and expose the demagogues perpetuating the racket. Through these “grassroots” actions and steadily chipping away at the façade - home prices will get back and are moving towards normal pre-bubble prices in all bubble markets. The free and open market system will still be preserved, allowed to work as intended and reward those involved in it.

-dcandout

Anonymous said...

DONT BUY DONT BUY DONT BUY

Anonymous said...

IMPEACH HIM

brokersleaveyoubroke said...

Anonymous said...
Hey hey.

Woo HOO!!

Millions of people will lose their homes!!

YEAY!!

You people are sick.

Why are we sick? You should rent the movie "The flim flam man". There is a great quote in the movie made by George c. Scott: "You can't con an honest man". An honest person would not take out a loan they could not repay. An honest person would understand the conditions of the loan before he accepted the money. An honest person would not gamble with other peoples money by taking out a mortgage based on hopes that the house could be sold for a profit later on. An honest person doesn't put the family home at risk to do a REFI to buy toys or do a home improvement because they don't have marble countertops like their friends. Did I leave anyone out? Is there anybody above that you think I should feel sorry for? These people drove up the price of houses so honest people can't afford them. You're damn right I'm gonna celebrate. Some honest but not too smart people got taken but incompetent people who are allowed to control their own money would eventually lose it to someone else anyway.