Home Sales Drop!
You’d think pre-owned homes would be a hot commodity in the current market, right? I mean, a steal on an existing home is worth much more than worrying about building the thing in the first place.
And yet, contracts signed on previously owned homes dropped 1.8% in September, according to the National Association of Realtors. So clearly something is off in our logic.
This came as a particularly big surprise to economists because they’d been expecting a 3% rise. But a drop in future homes sales, even before the foreclosure crisis, means we’re in for some troubled times in the pre-owned home market.
Of course, there are some theories out there. One of the more sensible is that foreclosed homes may have been pulled off the market since the robo-signer scandal. This would throw off the numbers, especially from the expected ones based on predictions.
So housing activity, even of the short sale kind, is bouncing along towards the bottom of the economic potential. Future steps banks may take regarding foreclosures may further complicate things.
We’ll need to keep watching the reports (even more than the forecasts) to understand what’s really going on. So don’t let the numbers bother you too much, just find the right opportunities and make your move.
