Existing Home Sales Report: December 2008

Today, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Existing Home Sales Report for December continues to indicate a new leg down in home sales despite the significant slide to median selling prices fueling a slight sales snap back from November as well as speculative distressed property buying in the west region.

Most importantly, the report continues to show stunning declines to the median selling price for both single family homes and condos across virtually every region.

The NAR leadership continues their shameless spin while simultaneously turning to the new Obama administration for a handout as Lawrence Yun notes:

“We’ve added 25 million people to our population over the past decade and housing affordability conditions are the best we’ve seen since 1973, but household formation is much lower than expected, … Consequently, there is a pent-up demand which could be unleashed with the right stimulus, including a non-repayable home buyer tax credit. The Obama administration and Congress need to move fast to stimulate a spring sales upturn which will help to stabilize home prices and set the foundation for a sustainable economic recovery.”

The following (click for larger versions) are charts showing sales for single family homes, plotted monthly, for 2006, 2007 and 2008 as well as national existing home inventory and month supply.







Below is a chart consolidating all the year-over-year changes reported by NAR in their most recent report.