Existing-home sales up, new home sales down - By: Groshan Fabiola

As of late, news about the housing market is pretty much all over the map.
No one really knows what is going to happen next, and everything is pretty much completely unpredictable.

Now that everyone has pretty much agreed upon the fact that the market is indeed slowing down, the next question on everyone’s mind is whether we are going to see an improvement in the future, or if we are going to see some more slowing before things start to pick up again.

Well, all of the data that is coming in is making things even more confusing and difficult to predict.

The most recent data shows us a variety of mixed signals concerning the health and vitality of our nation’s housing market.

The most recent data coming in shows us both good and bad news.

As for the good news, according to a major trade association, sales of existing homes increased last month.
As for the bad news, new home sales slowed.

A February 28, 2007 article by RISMedia.com, “Existing-home sales improve in January,” looks at the latest numbers that are coming in concerning our housing market. “Sales of existing homes rose in January, reaching the highest level in seven months, according to the National Association of Realtors®. Total existing-home sales-including single-family, town homes, condominiums and co-ops - increased 3.0 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate1 of 6.46 million units in January from an upwardly revised pace of 6.27 million in December. Sales were 4.3 percent below the 6.75 million-unit level in January 2006.”

Although we are seeing improvements in the exiting home sales, which is definitely good news for the market, we shouldn’t get our hopes up to high.

Things are improving here, but there are other aspects of the housing market that are still declining.
And surprisingly enough, one of the housing industry’s most influential figures is sighting the strange weather we have been seeing as reason for these unpredictable numbers.
“David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, said observers shouldn’t overreact to the sales gain, or to other short-term effects. ‘Although we’re expecting existing-home sales to gradually rise this year, and buyers are responding to the price correction, some unusually warm weather helped boost sales in January,’ he said. ‘On the flip side, the winter storms that disrupted so much of the country in February could negatively impact the housing market.’”

Although many housing markets were essentially shut down for a while in February due to the extreme whether conditions, things should continue to pick up shortly.
Only time will tell what will happen to our market in the future.

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