From the Asbury Park Press:
Pending sales of homes hit hard in May
Pending sales of existing homes in May dropped to their lowest level in almost six years, a real estate trade group said Tuesday, demonstrating the persistence of the housing slump.
The 3.5 percent decline, compared with the previous month, follows a drop of 3.4 percent in April and a 4.5 percent dip in March. It leaves the National Association of Realtors’ index at its lowest point since September 2001.
Lawrence Yun, the association’s senior economist, said turmoil in the mortgage market is weighing on home sales, as lenders pull back from riskier mortgages to borrowers with weak credit histories.
“Some transactions are being postponed from mortgage market disruptions,” Yun said. While mortgage applications are increasing, some of that is a result of buyers seeking alternatives to subprime financing, he said.
The association’s index of pending home sales fell to 97.7 in May, from a downwardly revised figure of 101.2 in April. The May figure is 13.3 percent lower than the May 2006 reading of 112.7.
The index stood at 89.8 in September 2001. An index reading of 100 is equal to the average level of contract activity in 2001.
fyi It’ll be fun to go back and mock the housing pumpers
Good youtube video from faux news’ business gurus from 2006
on what was expected for housing prices in 2007.
Two of the guys hopefully have found new lines of work. Not only were they wrong, but they were jackasses. Must have been homedebtors themselves who were long REIC stocks.
http://housingpanic.blogspot.com/2007/07/itll-be-fun-to-go-back-and-mock-housing.html
And as always, Peter Schiff is the man.