April Existing Home Sales

Posted: May 25, 2007 at 8:27 pm by Somesh

Resale Inventory reaches a new all time high of 4.2 Million Homes.

Which is in line with the 2005 and 2006 patterns. Sharp increases during the Spring Selling Season. Inventories can be expected to rise further.

Rest of the stats were pretty much in line with a weakening housing market.

Sales & Prices continue to slide downwards.

April New Home Sales

Posted: May 24, 2007 at 6:54 pm by Somesh

The Census Bureau today released the April New Home Sales Reports.

New Home Sales Rose Sharply by 16% from March.

New Home Prices Drop 11% from March.

If this trend continues, it would mean one thing.

The Builder gimmick of giving away upgrades and incentives, while trying to hold the prices steady, was not working any more. Now they have to start slashing the actual prices to keep the inventory moving.

This is bad news for the existing home owners, who are trying to sell their own homes. The Home Builders can easily steal potential buyers of existing homes by lowering their own profit margins.

The Price of Printing Dollars…..

Posted: May 24, 2007 at 6:40 am by Somesh

Not a typical gas station in San Francisco, prolly just one of it’s kind.

But underscores what inflating the money supply has done to gas prices.

Box Living

Posted: May 22, 2007 at 6:12 am by Somesh

Who does not want to live in a box, between two other boxes….

631 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA 94107

The Median Problem

Posted: May 17, 2007 at 6:25 am by Somesh

The April Data Quick Numbers are out.

As sales fall off, the Medians hit new highs.

It is odd for this to happen when the slump is worsening, but there is an explanation.

Sales are not falling off uniformly across all price ranges. The lower end or the entry level homes are the ones that are not selling as they used to before. (Read marginal buyers trying to get into the market with starter homes.)

Now what that does in the monthly sample is that the lower priced sales are missing as compared to a year earlier. And since everything that actually sold was on the higher end, the Medians, which are the mid point of all sales, are also rising.

At this point I think Case-Shiller Indices are a better measure of price movements, which is published every month. And also the OFHEO HPI, though it is published quarterly and usually reflects market conditions at least six months prior from the date of the release.

Taking Stock of Resale Inventory

Posted: May 16, 2007 at 6:30 am by Somesh

Per Housing Tracker , Resale SFH + Condo Inventory as of May 14 for the Top 10 Markets

1. Atlanta - 112K
2. Miami - 111K
3. Chicago - 67K
4. Detroit - 67K
5. Riverside - 48K
6. Phoenix - 46K
7. Tampa - 46K
8. Houston - 45K
9. Dallas - 42K
10. Los Angeles - 38K

Greater New York Area is at 50K [Edison, 12K ; Long Island, 11K ; NYC, 20K; Newark, 7K]

Number of US House Holds Falls

Posted: May 9, 2007 at 6:30 am by Somesh

The Census Bureau is reporting that the number of US House Holds fell, -0.21% in Q1 from the previous quarter.

A house hold is defined as an occupied housing unit.

The last time this happened was in 2002-Q1, drop of -2.98%. Over a year after the 2001 recession started.

We are not yet officially in recession. This contraction represents those who have lost their homes to foreclosure and have moved in with their folks.

What will the coming quarters look like?

Or is this a statistical anomaly just for this quarter?

Meanwhile the number of Vacant Houses spiked again in the first quarter.

Evictions rise as more fail home economics

Posted: May 6, 2007 at 7:00 am by Somesh

From the LA Times :

“Sheriff’s Deputy Mike Strickland is a postman of bad news, delivering eviction notices in the western stretch of San Bernardino County.

He is armed with a Glock .45, which he seldom draws, and Scotch tape, which he goes through in prodigious amounts while posting court orders on doors and windows.

The deputy spends most of his days at down-market apartment complexes, where the destitute, the addicted and the forlorn fitfully live. But in recent months he has begun venturing into neighborhoods with spacious homes and groomed yards, bringing his legal warnings to those who have fallen hopelessly behind on their mortgages.”

In the coming year, this phenomenon will move into the suburbs from the exurbs.
As the American Dream turns into a nightmare.

Infinity & One Rincon

Posted: May 3, 2007 at 6:25 am by Somesh

The Infinity and One Rincon Hill rise into the San Francisco sky!!

David Lereah moves to Move.com

Posted: May 1, 2007 at 6:17 am by Somesh

Motley Fool is reporting : Housing’s Biggest Cheerleader Moves

“I’ve written over and over again about the housing-market pumping in which National Association of Realtors Chief Economist David Lereah has engaged. His ability to make bad predictions was, to my mind, only surpassed by the magnitude of his bombast, or perhaps his ill timing.

This is a guy who looked at dwindling numbers from the likes of Hovnanian Enterprises (NYSE: HOV) and KB Home (NYSE: KBH), saw subprimes melt down at New Century Financial, watched Alt-A get worse for the likes of Indymac (NYSE: NDE) and Motley Fool Income Investor pick Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM), yet consistently told the press that all was well. I still have no idea how self-respecting business journalists anywhere could have parroted his biased misinformation for so long.”

All I can add is I will miss this Comedy Central of Housing.

But certainly will be good for his mother.