From the Record:
Housing slowdown leads to job cuts
The housing slowdown has led to thousands of job cuts, with more to come, the Mortgage Bankers Association said this week.
Construction has been hit hardest, with a loss of 45,000 jobs nationwide during 2006, according to “Trends in Housing-Related Employment,” the group’s report.
Housing sales sectors — such as mortgage lending, real estate sales, building inspection, real estate appraisals, and interior and landscape design — added jobs in 2006, but have begun to shed jobs this year, the report said.
“We do expect further job cuts this year in the mortgage industry itself, as well as in the broad housing-related industry through the rest of the year,” said Orawin T. Velz, director of economic forecasting for the association. “Sales-related employment tends to have a longer lag than construction-related employment.”
New Jersey has seen construction employment shrink by about 1.7 percent, or 3,000 jobs, over the past 12 months, according to New Jersey labor officials. About 173,800 people work in construction in the Garden State.
Patrick O’Keefe, head of the New Jersey Builders Association, said that housing permits in the first quarter of 2007 were down 32 percent from the same period last year; that points to a big drop in construction activity in the year ahead.
“There will be further layoffs,” O’Keefe said.
It’s estimated that housing-related industries employ 7 million people nationwide, with 3.2 million of the total in construction and the rest in sales-related fields. The National Association of Realtors says there are 1.3 million real estate agents in the nation; in New Jersey, there are about 56,000.
…
But housing starts nationally dropped nearly 13 percent last year, and sales volume of existing houses and condos dropped by 8.5 percent nationally and 16 percent in New Jersey.With the market still slow, hiring in housing industries is unlikely to pick up steam until 2008, at the earliest, the mortgage bankers predicted.
Toll Brothers Net Slumps on Writedowns, Drop in Housing Demand
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=asxVftHDbXIQ&refer=home
“I’d like to see inventories start to get worked down,” Jack Lake, a research analyst at Victory Capital Management in Cleveland, whose mutual funds held more than 1 million Toll shares at the end of March, said before the earnings were released. “The market just needs to see signs of stabilization.”
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What was Paulson saying??
Labor Market Figures That Are Puzzling the Fed: John M. Berry
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a0jvfQesFpp8
For the 2006 second and third quarters together, the BED data show a payroll increase of 485,000, compared to 808,000 for the regular payroll figures. For the six months, that’s the difference between monthly payroll gains of 80,000 versus 135,000, Stone said.
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I’m sorry if this is a repost.
The employment statistics likely underestimate construction related job losses. Many of these jobs went to undocumented workers and therefore don’t show up officially.
Sacramento 95832 Housing Bust: Anyone want a house at 50% off? Anyone? Anyone?
watch: http://housingpanic.blogspot.com/2007/05/sacramento-housing-bust-anyone-want.html
New Today! Housing Bubble Hits Home
http://www.paperdinero.com/BNN.aspx?id=198
Segment chronicles some of the aspects of the housing mania and subsequent decline that we now know all too well. Features a series of anecdotal stories of personal gloom and doom while tracking a series of “homeowners” from 2005 to today.
Originally aired on: 4/27/2007 on NOW
Running Time: 11 minutes 18 seconds
FLASH: New home prices crash at least 11% nationwide while sales fall 10% VERSUS LAST YEAR
http://housingpanic.blogspot.com/2007/05/flash-new-home-prices-crash-at-least-11.html
UPDATED – chart from housingdoom (that the MSM won’t show you)
For the “there is no housing bubble” and “home prices never go down” crowd, today’s numbers should drive a stake through their hearts.
And to think we’re still just getting started. It’s a long, long, long, long, long way back down.
However, watch the MSM and NAR spin today’s numbers (VS. LAST MONTH) as good news, and that we’re “bottoming out”. How many times can we “bottom out” until they realize the bottom is not even in sight? And when will they finally think for a change and do year over year comparisons, the only real thing that matters?
Also, keep in mind these numbers from your government are untrustworthy, have a massive margin of error, and don’t even include the use of builder incentives, which we know are massive. So take ’em with a grain of salt – even though it’s obvious sales are overstated and prices are down much more than reported.
WASHINGTON, May 24 (Reuters) – Sales of new U.S. homes rose 16.2 percent in April, the sharpest climb in 14 years, while prices fell a record 11 percent, according to a government report on Thursday that showed home builders taking extraordinary steps to move houses.
New single-family home sales rose to an annual rate of 981,000 units from a revised rate of 844,000 in March, the Commerce Department said.
Analysts polled by Reuters were expecting April sales to rise slightly to an 860,000 unit pace from a previously reported rate of 858,000 units in March.
In April, the median sales price of a new home fell $28,500 to $229,100 from $257,600 in March. That’s the lowest price for a new home since September 2006 when the median sales price was $226,700.
The previous record decline was a 9.4 percent fall-off in September 1981. Compared with a year ago, April’s sales price was off 10.9 percent — the fourth-largest decline ever. The record 14.6 percent decline was set in July 1970 and the next three largest falls occurred in that same year.