Existing home sales hit decade low
Existing home sales hit their lowest levels in a decade while price declines offered little to help stem the fall. Median home prices fell nearly 10%. Of course the biggest losses were seen in bubble areas such as inland California, Florida and Las Vegas.
From Bloomberg on the losses:
Existing U.S. home sales fell to a 10-year low in the second quarter and the median price for a single-family house dropped 7.6 percent as the real estate recession deepened.
The median price tumbled to $206,500 from $223,500 a year earlier, the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors said today. Sales of single-family houses and condominiums fell 16 percent to 4.913 million at an annualized pace.
Prices are declining with the U.S. on the brink of a recession, consumer prices rising and 30-year fixed mortgage rates at a six year high last month. A third of all sales in the quarter were foreclosures or “short sales,” in which lenders take a loss on a property, the Realtors said. Bank repossessions almost tripled in July from a year earlier, RealtyTrac Inc., a seller of foreclosure data, said in a separate report today.
“It’s getting worse,” Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s executive vice president for marketing, said in an interview. “The number of properties that have been foreclosed on by the banks and still haven’t sold is the highest we’ve ever seen.”
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Existing home sales hit decade low
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