existing home sales down 16.7% in december

link?

just got a cnbc iphone update.

16.7% against what? November?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/35058136

It is against November. The number is +15.0% vs. December 2008.

It's ambiguous or maybe I need another cup of coffee. The NAR release makes it sound like the moving average is down 16.7%, so potentially December moved sharply down? I would expect NAR to twist the numbers to the most favorable interpretation possible.

yes, it's supposed to be a seasonally-adjusted annual rate. Here is the raw data, not sure if this will paste in correctly.

DATE UNITS | DATE UNITS
12/09 5.45 | 12/08 4.74
11/09 6.54 | 11/08 4.54
10/09 6.09 | 10/08 4.94
|
9/09 5.54 | 9/08 5.10
8/09 5.09 | 8/08 4.93
7/09 5.24 | 7/08 4.99
|
6/09 4.89 | 6/08 4.90
5/09 4.72 | 5/08 4.95
4/09 4.66 | 4/08 4.85
|
3/09 4.55 | 3/08 4.92
2/09 4.71 | 2/08 4.95
1/09 L4.49 | 1/08 4.91

what's ambiguous? month to month (december with respect to november) sales collapsed but 2009 sales were higher than 2008 sales (more than 5 million units).

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aT3W9h.YcuLo&pos=2

anyway, the key is to see what happens when the fed stops creating fake affordability through fake low mortgage rates and the buyers credit expires. that should be on the second part of 2010 (if they ever expire?). interesting times ahead!

Says existing u.s. home sales plunged. Would be interesting to know the effect on median/mean price.

Admin, if the raw numbers above are correct, it's month-to-month. The cnbc link made it sound as if the moving average was down 16.7%.
Dog bites man news, really. Is it surprising at all that December numbers are smaller than November?

always better to read from bloomberg htan from cnbc

maly, the raw numbers above are supposed to represent moving averages. In other words:

1. Take the actual November figures
2. Adjust for seasonality
3. Annualize it.

That's how they get to a rate of 5.45 million units (annually). According to the reporting, the big reason for the drop in December was because the gov't tax credit was originally due to expire on November 30. So this created a flurry of contracts in October and November, as the data shows.

Existing U.S. Home Sales Decreased More Than Forecast (Update2)
2010-01-25 15:28:54.607 GMT

(Adds economist comment in fourth paragraph.)

By Courtney Schlisserman
Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Sales of existing U.S. homes plunged
in December more than anticipated, the month after a government
tax credit was originally due to expire.
Purchases decreased 17 percent, the biggest decline since
records began in 1968, to a 5.45 million annual rate from 6.54
million pace the prior month, the National Association of
Realtors said today in Washington. The median sales price
increased for the first time in two years, reflecting fewer
first-time buyers, the group said.
First-time buyers rushed to complete deals before the
$8,000 government incentive was expected to end on Nov. 30. The
subsequent extension and expansion of the credit, together with
the one- to two-month delay between contract signings and
closings, signals demand will pick up again in the first half of
this year.
“We’ll see a pickup in existing home sales in the next
couple of months” as people take advantage of the tax-credit
extension, said Adam York, an economist at Wells Fargo
Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina, who forecast a 5.4
million sales pace. Although “we’re past the bottom,” he said,
“I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of buyers out there
looking for a home outside of the tax-induced effects until they
feel more comfortable with the labor market.”
Stocks trimmed earlier gains following the report. The
Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was up 0.8 percent to 1,100.09 at
10:26 a.m. in New York. The S&P Supercomposite Homebuilder Index
was also up 0.8 percent.

Less Than Forecast

Economists forecast existing home sales would fall to a 5.9
million rate in December, according to the median of 61
projections in a Bloomberg News survey. Estimates ranged from
5.4 million to 6.75 million.
For the year, existing home sales rose 4.9 percent to 5.16
million, the first gain in four years, from 4.91 million in
2008.
The number of previously owned unsold homes on the market
decreased 6.6 percent to 3.29 million, the lowest level since
March 2006. At the current sales pace, it would take 7.2 months
to sell those houses, compared with 6.5 months at the end of
November.
The median price was $178,300 in December, up 1.5 percent
from the same month in 2008. The increase was the first since
August 2007 and the biggest since May 2006, the agents’ group
said. A decline in the number of first-time buyers, who usually
purchases less expensive houses, helped push up the median value
last month, NAR chief economists Lawrence Yun said in a news
conference.
The share of homes sold to first-time buyers fell to 43
percent in December from 51 percent the prior month, Yun said,
indicating the expected end of the tax credit played a role in
the drop in sales.

Credit Extended

President Barack Obama and Congress extended the first-time
buyer credit to cover deals signed by April 30 and closed by
June 30, and expanded it to include current homeowners. Even so,
some economists believe the original measure pulled sales
forward, restraining demand for a few months.
After rebounding early this year, sales will probably fall
off again after June, Yun said in the press conference. The
degree of the decline will depend on the state of the job
market, he said.
Yun said he was “generally pleased” with the December
outcome since he was fearing an even larger drop following the
expiration of the tax credit. “There is an increase in home-
buyer confidence,” he said, adding “there is some sustainable
momentum” in sales. Even with the decline, sales were still up
15 percent from the same month last year, signaling the general
improvement, he said.

New-Home Sales

New-home sales, which are calculated when contracts are
signed, dropped 11 percent in November to reach a seven-month
low, the Commerce Department reported last month. Economists
project the figures for December, due Jan. 27, will show
purchases increased 4.2 percent.
The end of Federal Reserve purchases of mortgage-backed
securities aimed at keeping borrowing costs low represents a
challenge for the industry. The program is scheduled to expire
by March 31.
Policy makers are scheduled to meet this week to discuss
the direction of the benchmark lending rate between banks. The
emergency programs were being wound down “in light of ongoing
improvements in the functioning of financial markets,” central
bankers said in their December 16 statement.
Joblessness and foreclosures are other concerns.
Unemployment is forecast to average 10 percent this year, the
highest level in seven decades. A record 3 million U.S. homes
will be repossessed by lenders this year, RealtyTrac Inc.
forecast on Jan. 14. That is up from 2.82 million in 2009, the
most since the company began compiling data in 2005.
Competition with foreclosures has been especially daunting
for homebuilders. KB Home, the Los Angeles-based homebuilder
that sells to first-time buyers, said Jan. 12 that fourth-
quarter revenue dropped 27 percent.
KB Home’s orders rose 12 percent to 1,446 from 1,296 in the
year-earlier quarter, while completed sales dropped 22 percent
to 3,042. The company is “not going to make money in the first
quarter” and plans to “restore profitability” in the second
half of 2010, Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Mezger said Jan.
12 in a conference call with analysts and investors.

"New Home Sales Plunge 11% In January"

"Sales of new single-family houses in January 2010 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 309,000"
"Analysts had been looking for 325,000, so this is a huge miss."

"The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of January was 234,000. This represents a supply of 9.1 months at the current sales rate."

http://www.businessinsider.com/new-home-sales-fall-11-in-january-2010-2

so much for that recovery thing....

data points like this that just show where things really are and where they are headed.

the is no way anything is going to go up for some time.....2007 prices were ridiculous....I say they stay at 2004-2005 until 2013 then things even out....it's going to be a slowwwwwww recovery

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/02/housing-best-leading-indicator-for.html