Good News On the Housing Front

Existing-home sales up and inventory down. Things seem to be evening out in the ole supply and demand.

~Existing-home sales jumped 6.5 percent
~Total housing inventory at the end of December fell 11.7 percent to 3.68 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 9.3-month supply at the current sales pace, down from a ~11.2-month supply in November.
~Single-family home sales: rose 7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.26 million in December from a level of 3.98 million in November.
~Existing condominium and co-op sales: increased 2.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 480,000 units in December from 470,000 in November.
~Homes sales in the Midwest increased 4.0 percent in December to a level of 1.04 million.
Homes Sales in the South rose 7.4 percent to an annual pace of 1.74 million in Decembe
~Homes sales in the West jumped 13.6 percent to an annual rate of 1.25 million in December and are 31.6 percent higher than a year ago.

NAR Housing wizard Yun said the market is actually “underperforming” and hurting the broader economy.

“We’ve added 25 million people to our population over the past decade and housing affordability conditions are the best we’ve seen since 1973, but household formation is much lower than expected,” he said. “Consequently, there is a pent-up demand which could be unleashed with the right stimulus, including a non-repayable home buyer tax credit. The Obama administration and Congress need to move fast to stimulate a spring sales upturn which will help to stabilize home prices and set the foundation for a sustainable economic recovery.”

This is news to get to your fence sitter buyers.

Florida Home Sales Bumps Up 3rd Month in a Row

Florida Association of Realtors reports that existing home sales in Florida rose for the third month in a row in November. Fort Lauderdale enjoyed a 26 percent increase over the number of homes sold during November of 2007. However, like other States that have experienced sales volume increases, median home sales price fell 34 percent. Fort Lauderdale’s condo sales for November 2008 grew 3 percent from sales in 2007.