Today, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Existing Home Sales Report for August showing that demand for residential real estate is now taking a new leg down uniformly across the nation’s housing markets.
Senior Economist Lawrence Yun is now left to simply state to obvious for risk of looking completely uniformed and off base.
“The unusual disruptions in the mortgage market, including a significant rise in jumbo loan rates, resulted in a fairly high number of postponed or cancelled sales, with many buyers having to search for other financing when loan commitments fell through, … Lower sales contributed to a buildup of unsold inventory.”
Additionally, NAR President Pat Vredevoogd Combs make a truly absurd attempt to spur on buyer activity by spinning the bad news and even calls a bottom to the mortgage turmoil.
“Mortgage interest rates have been declining and loan availability is improving… Movements to enhance the FHA loan program and to raise the limits for conventional financing could provide additional relief, and it looks like the worse of the mortgage availability problem is behind us.”
Looking at August's Existing Home Sales report should only result in additional confirmation that the nation’s housing markets are now entering a new leg down with EVERY regions showing considerable declines to sales of BOTH single family and condos as well as significant increases to inventory and monthly supply.
Keep in mind that we are now seeing existing home sales declines on the back of last years fairly dramatic declines further indicating that the housing markets are not bottoming as many had been suggested last fall.
Below is a chart consolidating all the year-over-year changes reported by NAR in their August 2007 report.
Particularly notable are the following:
- Sales are down significantly in EVERY region and for BOTH single family and condo.
- ALL Inventory and Months Supply show significant increases on a year-over-year basis.
