Pending Sales Hit 19-Month High, Interest Rates remain crazy low, housing starts are up across the country and many markets are seeing prices stabilizing. Of course I know that YOu KNOW that all real estate is local and Columbus, Ohio Real Estate isn’t East Coast Real Estate. Here, The National Association of Realtors is telling it like it is…or are they, as one commentor writes, putting icing on a ‘pile of crap’?…. Fresh from NAR to you….
NAR released its latest pending home sales index figure last week and for the second month in a row the index is up. But more than that, the index has broken 100. This is significant because the only time since the housing boom collapsed that the index has broken 100 is when the home owner tax credit was in effect. The fact that the index has returned to that level a year since the credit has been in effect means the housing market is strengthening completely on its own, without any stimulus.
NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun is upbeat about 2012 because in a number of areas indicators are pointing upward. Not only are home sales up but housing starts are up and home prices are stabilizing in many markets and heading up in some. In areas where they’re still down, the declines aren’t that great. More fundamentally, broader U.S. economic signs are looking positive, including the all-important jobs picture. About 100,000 job are being created a month, and that could rise to 150,000—still not a quick enough pace to get us back to where we were before the downturn but the headwinds are in the right direction.
In the video, Yun talks about what the latest figures mean.
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on Thursday, January 5th, 2012 at 11:14 am and is filed under Real Estate News.
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