Housing News

Yesterday the news was trumpeting the "bounce" in new home sales. Record levels they said over and over again. Kinda makes you think the housing slump is over eh? As usual, never believe the headlines. Here's the whole story:

In spite of a record decline in median sales price and a 14 year high in new home sales, actual inventory of homes dropped a mere 8,000 units from 540,000 to 532,000 units.

So, indeed, sales were strong (although I read elsewhere that the sales number is notorious volatile and subject to huge revisions) but look at those prices. And inventory? Still huge.

Meanwhile, from the same post linked above is the news that in Sacramento CA a house that was selling for $526,000 got no bids yesterday at half price.