US home sales fall to fresh lows, glut of unsold homes rises

[medbiller777]

US existing home sales fell 8.0 percent in September as a persistent housing slump continued to weigh on the property market and the world's biggest economy, an industry group said Wednesday.
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said in a monthly snapshot that sales of existing homes and apartments tumbled to a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.04 million units in September from 5.48 million in August.

The drop was worse than expected. Most economists had only expected sales to decline to around 5.25 million.

Stripping out apartment sales, sales fell to their lowest level since January 1998.


http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=071024152444.1bd2qxem&show_article=1

[firstoftwelve]

Ours has been on the market 5 months in North Carolina and we've been living w/ my FIL in Michigan. Once ours sells, we'll be more than happy to take one off somebody's hands here!!!

[PrinceSomeday]

Out here in Nevada, home prices have dropped around 20% and more. Average days on the market for a home is now around 200 and rising. One of the highest incidences of foreclosures in the nation. Most folks are sitting tight waiting for things to settle down.

IMHO I believe this is a temporary problem. Why?

1. Vast majority of homes are not for sale (most folks staying put for now). Homes for sale and/or in foreclosure as a percent of total homes is TINY!!

2. The market adjusts itself (as long as gov't stays out of the way). The more homes on the market not selling drives price down until they do sell. The largest complaint recently about home sales was that prices were getting too high for first time buyers. Now prices are coming down, all those pent up home owner wanabees are going to start buying at some point which will have an impact on turning around these temporarily poor numbers.

3. Many baby-boomers are nearing retirement age and not wanting large homes with high maintenance costs and difficult to get around in (multi-story), which will mean they will start selling larger homes and buying smaller homes, which will have an impact on turning around these temporarily poor numbers.

4. Mortgage lenders are temporarily tightening up credit, making it difficult to borrow...a temporarily smart move to shore up their own balance sheets but won't work long-term because how they make money is by loaning it. Expect mortgage opportunities to start opening up again as banks begin to feel more solid and in need of income.

5. World War II Generation is dying off, causing their homes to go on the market, making an increased number of homes for sale...this is not going to let up for a number of years (has nothing to do with tight credit). Many of them also own more than one rental home which many heirs will want to sell to liquidate the estate. Once again, this will put downward pressure on housing prices, making them more available for first-time home-owners to be able to afford but the heirs are going to want to liquidate the estate and "get their hands on the money" which will force prices down to what the market will bear.

Just my thoughts.

[lovinlife4]

We are 6 weeks and counting and not using a realtor because they charge 7% Forsalebyowner.com is wonderful. We actually had 3 calls in 3 days which turned into 3 showings yesterday. We'll see if anything comes of it though. There are 6 houses for sale in my suburb and most have been sitting for 6-8 months. I certainly have been praying that ours doesn't follow suit. Maybe they should lower the interest rates and people might feel more comfortable buying!

[MoreThanReady]

There is about 9 months to a 1 year supply of homes in most parts of the country.
Thanks to 'easy' credit and over building by home builders.
now that mortages are harder to get (except for us, we got banks falling over themselves wanting to give us a mortgage to buy a 2nd home.. not sure why), housing slows down, also it has driven out many speculators that were helping to drive the market to unreasonable highs and home price increases that just could not be sustained.

If your trying to sell right now, it trully stinks.. If your looking to buy it is a great time because we are now in a buyers market. Plus, didn't anyone think that with so many poeple buying homes and 2nd homes and driving the market for the last 3 or 4 years, that sooner or latter MOST people would have a home and those left couldn't afford to BUY a new home ??

[Doublezero]

Firstoftwelve,

what city in NC ?

[firstoftwelve]

kernersville - between Winston-Salem and Greensboro

we can even reccommend a great church 5 minutes away!! :)