Today, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Existing Home Sales Report for October showing a continued trend down coming in the wake of the now obviously phony baloney government tax credit sponsored surge in home sales activity seen earlier in the year.Single family home sales declined 2% since September but remained a whopping 25.6% below the level seen last year while prices declined 0.75% since September and 0.50% below the level seen in October 2009.
It's important to recognize that the annual pace of sales is far below the lows seen even during the worst months of 2008 and early 2009.
Further, inventory remains high climbing 8.7% above the level seen in October 2009 which, combined with the slow pace of sales, resulted in a large monthly supply of 10.1.
Clearly, all can now see that the government's housing tax credit was not only a gimmick... it was a complete failure, a massively wasteful and expensive handout to the housing industry and a futile and likely very dangerous exercise in market manipulation.
The following charts (click for full-screen dynamic version) shows national existing single family home sales, median home prices, inventory and months of supply since 2005.
