Today, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Existing Home Sales Report for January which firmly indicates a new leg down in home sales despite the significant slide to median selling prices fueling speculative sales in the western region.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 with their chief economist Lawrence Yun suggesting that buyers were sidelined by all the “stimulus package discussion” and that the housing markets will soon benefit from the government handouts:
“Given so much stimulus package discussion in January, some would-be buyers simply sat out for clarity and certainty on the nature of housing stimulus, … The housing market will soon get a lift from very favorable buying conditions – not only from improved affordability, but also from the stimulus of an $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit, and higher conforming loan limits that will allow more people to tap into 50-year low mortgage rates.”
The following (click for larger versions) are charts showing sales for single family homes, plotted monthly, for 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 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.
