The news just does not get better for housing, the National Association of Realtors reported that the national sales of existing homes unexpectedly plunged in January to the lowest level in nearly 12 years. Sales of existing homes fell 5.3 percent to an annual rate of 4.49 million last month, from 4.74 million in December.
The January number for Alameda are not any better with the median home sale price dropping to $457,000 this year. This is a drop of 26% from the prior 12-months when the median was $621,450. The national median sales price in January dropped to $170,300, down 14.8 percent from $199,800 a year earlier and from $175,000 in December.
Alameda sales between January of 2008 and 2009 remained unchanged, it was 21 sales in both years, but the total sales for the calendar year fell 20% from '07 to '08.
2008 -- 444
2007 -- 553
It has been 12-years,July 1997, since the US housing market seen sales this low. A few "Experts" don't see sales hitting bottom until later this year as prices continue to sink.
The good news for us in the West it was the only part of the country to show an increased in sales regionally.
The number of unsold homes on the market fell almost 3 percent last month to 3.6 million, the lowest inventory level in two years. But due to the slumping sales pace, it would still take 9.6 months to rid the market of all of those properties, up from 9.4 months in December.
The number of properties continue to languishing on the market and Alameda has seen very stagnate inventory levels. More home would likely be on the market would if sellers weren't so reluctant to list their properties to avoid sinking prices. NAR estimates that about 45 percent of sales nationwide are foreclosures or other distressed properties.
Two Videos -- The first on the National Housing Meltdown and the Second on NAR's release of the sales numbers
With property values continue to fall look for the State revenues to continue to shrink. The bousing bubble in the 00's is similar to the dot.com bubble in the late 90s. State revenues had been inflated artificially and when the bubble bursts we get a huge state deficits. In 2003, the deficit grew to $30 billion. In 2009 it was $40+ billion. Unfortunately this time I do not see any "bubble" bringing back state revenues anytime soon. As a result, governmental services will need to shrink at a time when they are needed the most.
ReplyDelete"The news just does not get better for housing." - This is all a matter of perspective. From my perspective as a renter who would like to buy, who has excellent credit and a 20% down payment this is good news. Now if they would just drop another 10-15% I could afford to buy in Alameda.
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