Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Existing Home Sales Report: November 2010

Today, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Existing Home Sales Report for November showing a slight bounce in sales 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 increased 6.7% since October but remained a whopping 27.32% below the level seen last year while prices declined 0.12% since October but climbed 1.18% above the level seen in November 2009.

It's important to recognize that the annual pace of sales is currently well below the lows seen even during the worst months of 2008 and early 2009.

Further, inventory remains high climbing 6.7% above the level seen in November 2009 which, combined with the slow pace of sales, resulted in a large monthly supply of 9.3.

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.