Northeast joins the party

From Bloomberg:

Northeast Is Toughest Place in U.S. to Sell Homes

The toughest place to sell a home in the U.S. in November was the Northeast as homebuyers sat on the sidelines in an area that has seen the biggest price gains.

An index measuring signed contracts for previously owned homes fell 13 percent in the region, the most in the country, the National Association of Realtors said today in a report. Prices there jumped more than sixfold over the past 26 years, leading the U.S., according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, or Ofheo.

The pending sale index’s drop in states including New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut was triple other U.S. regions and demonstrates home sellers are having to lower expectations as the real estate slump worsens. Nationally, the number of Americans signing contracts to buy previously owned homes fell 2.6 percent in November from October, according to the Realtors’ Pending Home Sales Index.

“The northeast is getting hit hard,” said Paul Rinkulis, an agent at Keliher Real Estate in Boston. “It’s at least as bad as it was in the late 1980s, early 1990s, and that was bad.”

The Realtors report showed pending resales fell in three of four regions. In addition to the Northeast’s 13 percent drop, the pending sales index decreased 4.1 percent in the Midwest and 2.1 percent in the West. The pending sales rose 2.3 percent in the South. The figures are seasonally adjusted.

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7 Responses to Northeast joins the party

  1. soylatte says:

    Well, I don’t know about that. I posted a long rambling post of questions on the new NJ.com Morristown blog, and Morristown is on the upswing, and it’s now a great time to buy. So too bad for the rest of the northeast!

    http://www.nj.com/morristown/index.ssf/2008/01/home_prices_holding_steady.html#578342

  2. Essex says:

    Not a huge fan of Morristown…..spotting neighborhoods….lots of undocumented folks wandering about….downtown has potential….but….just….not….feeling…it.

  3. Essex says:

    sorry…make that SPOTTY neighborhoods…..not spotting….oops.

  4. soylatte says:

    I am actually a big fan of Moristown; I’m just very iffy on how they can sell all the new condos that are planned. I really would like to stay here, but I really don’t want to live in a construction project for the next time years, and am a little bit worried they are going to continue to knock down huge parts of towns,and then the developers will walk away.

  5. 3b says:

    #4soylatte: Morristown is dropping just like every other area. Don’t believe the silliness (lies).

  6. bergenbuyer says:

    Grim- is this you??? Or do you have an impersonator at nj.com.

    Posted by jamesbednar on 01/08/08 at 5:39PM
    Hi soylatte,

    I’m the moderator at https://www.njrereport.com. I’m a renter too.

    The reason why I made those graphs is to track the New Jersey real estate crash that I believe is taking place.

    I would like post graphs of NJ home prices, but the statewide data show that home prices are holding steady. So I don’t post those graphs.

    -Grim

  7. JJ says:

    It should crash, things have gotten way overpriced, even in the rental market which seems to show signs of dropping

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