Existing Home Sales losing the little mo it had

By Peter Boockvar - February 26th, 2010, 10:45AM

Existing Home Sales totaled 5.05mm annualized which was 450k below expectations and down from 5.44mm in Dec. It’s at the lowest level since June and follows the recent downward trend in the purchase index (now at lowest since 1997) of the weekly MBA data and Wednesday’s record low New Home Sales data. Both single family and condos/co-ops saw a fall and in every region. Months supply rose to 7.8 from 7.2 and to a 4 month high but was solely led by a rise in single family inventories. Condos/co-ops saw months supply fall to 9 from 9.4. The absolute # of homes available for sale fell to 3.265mm, the lowest since Mar ’06. The median price was flat y/o/y at $164,700 but matches the lowest level since May ’02. Bottom line, lower prices, $1T of MBS purchases and a home buying tax credit are not enough to offset the lack of confidence and tough labor market in generating sustainable sales growth.

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Category: MacroNotes.

Comments

Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

2 Responses to “Existing Home Sales losing the little mo it had”

Market Talk » Blog Archive » Digging Deeper Into Data (And The Snow) Says:
February 26th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
[...] offset the lack of confidence and tough labor market in generating sustainable sales growth,” says Peter Boockvar, an equity strategist with Miller [...]
Links for (another) snowy weekend and little sugar « ClosingGuyInPittsburgh Says:
February 27th, 2010 at 9:49 am
[...] Existing home sales losing the little mo it had – Of course, right after I rip in to how housing statistics are reported, I go and link a story on the latest month-to-month change in existing home sales. Ok, fine, guilty of reversing course a bit. But for numbers that do matter in this industry, existing home sales is about the most important number to track. [...]