Sales Start to Increase Nationwide

... or could be that the economy still sucks, it's still damn near impossible for anyone with less than stellar credit to get financing, wall street is getting hosed, bonuses will be non-existent and the dollar is strengthening.

"the last reports" - you mean the last reports that came from brokers or that flew outta yer ass?

nice one will. I'm still laughin'.

Will: you forgot to add something...namely the part about inventory increasing as well.

http://www.housingwire.com/2008/08/25/existing-home-sales-post-gain-but-so-does-inventory/

Yes, but it's been going down the past couple of months in Manhattan. Now down to less than 7000. All recent price data still pointing upwards.

I agree that the economy still sucks. But the news has been pretty damned bad for 6 months to a year now, and we're still holding relatively steady. As I have said in previous threads, I don't deny the impact, but part company with the crash victims.

http://urbandigs.com/

will, it's the part about "recent price data pointing upwards" that has everyone laughing. Care to point out a meaningful, reputable source? Or, again, did it just come flying... Urbandigs (the source you just referred us to) pointed out that it's down about 8% or so, according to an earlier thread.

Don't tell us that you're basing your claim on the stats from a major brokerage firm! You don't want your credibility to drop to that of petrfitz, do you?

will likes to point out lagging indicators like prices - on units that went into contract months ago.

Inventory always goes down in the summer. Lots of new development not released.

The fact is prices are falling. Just wait for the rest of it.

I still have no idea what will is talking about.

Prices continue to fall in NYC.

See: http://www.urbandigs.com/2008/08/manhattan_state_of_the_market.html#comments

Plus, will doesn't seem to comprehend that there have been a ton of listings pulled this summer that will reappear in the fall.

Fall from what? Unrealistic asking prices (ie West Village FSBO asking 825k 9 months months after FSBO buys unit for about 655k) or fall from actual purchase price YOY. Which one?

It all comes to down to Credit Availability / Mortgage Financing...and since the banks are gearing up to do the end of year refinancing themselves it is going to get real ugly soon...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aQLwsxFqjNQ0&refer=home

Someone take a wild guess why sales are up...

The comment on inventory is comical and if you cant figure out why it went down to 7000 then you clearly don't understand the environment...its funny that you quote Urbandigs because he describes it perfectly why inventory hs gone down...and why it will go right back up by the end of the year....

All pricing is built around Wall Street Bonus season....which we all know what that means...

And for our saviors the Europeans...Euro Declines to Six-Month Low After German Confidence Report

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHfD.ddhlJP0&refer=home

Let's all just start getting a little more realistic....while prices wont drop through the ground, they will come down a bit so a discussion around that is more benfical than someone trying to be a hero and say everything is a-ok....

"or fall from actual purchase price YOY"

Look at price cuts at new dev vs. listings in contract. Fall from purchase price.

Analysts have attributed the recent national increase in sales mostly to foreclosures and pre-foreclosures/short sales.

"Look at price cuts at new dev vs. listings in contract. Fall from purchase price."

Once again stevejhx your comments and reply make absolutely no sense. Pure double talk as usual.

Exactly....so take all that together and how can any sane person actually think we are "turning around"...

Will- How about your numbers now. It seems that local governments, have been buying foreclosed homes, with tax payer money. They are doing this for several reasons. The one that's terribly troubling is, they are re-selling them to developers. The thing that they are not saying, is for how much less, then they actually purchased the homes. My guess is they are selling them at a significant discount, just to get the taxes flowing again.

Now local gov't are getting in to the real estate business. I'm sure this is a great idea. Not to mention the level of corruption this will bring.

It looks like the gov't has found another way to skew the numbers, again.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/26400954

Will-

Here's a website you might enjoy: http://www.happyrenews.com/

kgg..Everyone is tired and bored of the doom and gloom real estate news. So what happens? Less people read the NYT or watch CNN for the next "Breaking Horrible Real Estate News!" So the media in all their savvy to trick the human race start to change the headlines to spark interest and the cycle starts all over again. People start to read and watch and in this case.......become a herd of buyers. It's so pathetic but it happens. Just watch the onslaught of sideline money getting into the game once the media starts with their shenanigans.

"By the way, sales have started to turn around on a nationwide basis."

From Curbed's link to a Times article:

National homes sales were up 3.1% in July, which should be cause for celebration, except for the fine print: "At least a third of properties bought in July involved foreclosed homes snapped up at bargain-basement prices or homes sold at a loss by owners who had no alternative, according to the private National Association of Realtors." The distressed sales meant that prices of previously owned home were 7.1% lower in July than a year earlier.

steve- Great theory, just one problem. How are people going to come up with 20-30% down payments and get a mortgage. The mortgage game has changed forever. Wanting to buy and being able to buy are two different things. This change will eliminate, millions of potential buyers, throughout the nation. Eventually prices will stop falling, however increases in property value will take years, if not a decade.

How many people do you think, in NYC, will be eliminated from buying $1M condos, because of the tightening standards. We'll see soon enough, when people with signed contracts for over a year try to get a mortgage. A unit that is $1M, is going to require 20-30% down and then your going to have to qualify for a $700,000-800,000 mortgage. What salary do you need to qualify for that type of mortgage? With thousand of units on the market and thousands more poised to hit, who or how in the world is this inventory going to get cleared?

"Could be the huge decline in prices will be like that tornado that hit Manhattan a couple of weeks ago. Probably more like some clouds and a brief drizzle for a little bit."

"I agree that the economy still sucks. But the news has been pretty damned bad for 6 months to a year now, and we're still holding relatively steady"

Things lag will and nyc lags the rest of the country. It's almost uncanny how your words have that familiar mantra of "we are different" and "things haven't gotten bad yet so they won't" and "real estate never goes down here" that preceded sharp declines in just about every other bubble market in the country. are you really going to be that guy??

"sideline money" does not work anymore when you can't actually go to the bank to actually get the money...

dco is right...i laugh at people who don't get this...the Mortgage game is what propped up the market (because the only other way is Income Appreciation) and it has gone back in time 20 years which makes it 10x harder to get a loan these days...this will become even worse in the new year due to the banks having to hord yet even more cash after funding problems this winter...

New home sales are up as well, in addition to existing home sales, as I previously reported.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/26405446

So nationwide stats are still pretty bad, but looking better. Local stats still look pretty good.

Sales mean nothing when inventory continues to climb of the total housing population...

The ONLY factor that matters is price (since sales are going to be goosed by steep discounts which will continue the asset deflation - Home prices also continued to sag. The average price of a new-home sold in July was $294,600, down 4.1 percent from a year ago.

Factor in inflation running at 6% and that's pretty ugly

http://nychousingbubble.blogspot.com/2008/08/unspun-housing-price-plunge-stats.html

Prices of U.S. single-family homes plunged a record 15.4 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, surpassing the steep drop in the first quarter, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case Shiller national home price index reported on Tuesday... COMMENTS: GARY SHILLING... "It's more of the same. We are looking for the Case-Shiller measure to eventually show a 40 percent total decline, peak to trough. The key point is we are a long way from bottoming out. The bulls keep hoping otherwise, but the basic problem is excess inventories. They are the mortal enemy of prices. That's true of any goods-producing sector and certainty is true of housing. We estimate that 2 million houses were built during the boom, and we've only worked that excess down to 1.8 million as of the beginning of 2008. We think we will see prices falling until the fourth quarter of 2010. There will be a lot more write-downs at financial institutions and a lot more problems for consumers. They have run out of borrowing power, principally because they can no longer rely on home equity."