Housing Numbers for May

June 25, 2009
Matt Isleib

 

In the month of May we now have reports that existing home sales rose slightly for the third straight month, existing sales rose 2.4 percent. The other report is the sale of new homes. The number for new home sales in May edged down 0.6 percent according to the Commerce Department.

As a whole home prices continued to fall and seem likely to continue the trend as the year goes on. Roughly one in every three homes sold was a foreclosure or some sort of distressed sale. That helped push the median home price to $173,000 nationwide down 16.8 percent from a year ago.

The results for new and existing home sales fell below economists’ expectations. The little glimpses of recovery in housing may be stalling as the inventory of distressed and foreclosed homes remains making it harder for the new home inventory to churn through. Besides the fact that mortgage rates have jumped in the past month may daunt any hopes that anyone may have had for a recovery this year. I am optimistically holding strong to a recovery that will have some base behind it in the spring of 2010.

When I say recovery I am not saying home values strongly increasing, I am a believer over the next 10 months or so we can get through some inventory and plug some of the holes that are still open in today’s housing market. Then and only then we can we talk about recovery and the future. In the meantime if you are in the market to buy there are some great deals out there for the taking.