Vacancy homes for sale
Written by A Forex View From Afar on Monday, March 24, 2008Back to www.thelfb.com
WSJ provides an interactive chart from 75 larger US areas with vacant homes for sale. In the last quarter of 2007 the home-owner vacancy rate climbed to 2.8%, the highest rate ever recorded, and that goes back to 1960 when tracking first begin. Not a bright light so far, but maybe it is a base to work from. The percentage may not seems a large number, just under 3%, the impact is more in the fact that whatever the number reads it has not ever been at these levels.
Also, an interview is available with 3 important analyst about the housing market.
In the mean time Existing Home Sales took a big and unexpected upwards rise from the January figures. Numbers are up 2.9% adjusted, while unadjusted existing home sales are up an impressive 12.2%, compared to a 0% expected by annalists. Even so, sales from last year are down an imposing 20%, and even worses compared to the top reached in 2006. Same again though, this may signal the bottom has been put in place.
At the current rate of sale, inventories will last 9.6 months, slightly higher then the average 7.5 months. The concern will be not in the fact that people may want to start buying at these levels, but that they may not easily qualify for the new lending criteria laid out after the SDub-Prime lending fall-out.
Existing house sales had a bump higher, but prices continued to go down compared to January and last year. The Median price for a house was $195,900 in February, compared to $213,500 in February 2007.
These numbers are not too encouraging, but they do show that buyers are there, they just need access to the newly discounted Interest Rates. No point in lower Rates feeding straight into the Institutional lender's balance sheets, there are buyers and sellers out there just waiting to be allowed access.
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