Thread: U.S. Economy: Home Prices Fall Near Depression Pace (Update

U.S. Economy: Home Prices Fall Near Depression Pace (Update1)

By Bob Willis and Shobhana Chandra

Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Sales of single-family houses in the U.S. dropped in November by the most in two decades and resale prices collapsed at a pace reminiscent of the Great Depression, dashing speculation the market was close to a bottom.

Purchases of both new and existing houses dropped 7.6 percent from the prior month, the biggest decline since January 1989, to an annual rate of 4.43 million, government and industry figures showed today. A 13 percent drop in the median resale price from a year earlier was the most since records began in 1968 and was likely the largest since the 1930s, the National Association of Realtors said.

“Housing is still in a freefall,â€

U.S. Economy: Home Prices Fall Near Depression Pace (Update1)

Ara Hovnanian, chief executive officer of Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., New Jersey’s biggest homebuilder, called on the government to provide an economic stimulus for the housing industry.

Can you believe these greedy bastards? They made millions on one side from the loose credit housing bubble, and on the other side from cheap illegal labor. If they wanted to get the economy moving they and the bankers would give all their ill-gotten millions to the government!!

the crooks no longer hide in the shadows ... they will rob you blind in broad day light and then tell you it is in your best interest

The Soprano's need to watch our Local, State and Federal Government and get lessons on how to be a career criminal

these people have used illegal Immigrant labor to build houses that we don't need

somehow you will be blamed for this America

I have no idea what these guys are trying to do. When you remove a large amount of supply from the market, the remaining supply on the market goes up in price. Decreased supply means the price of anything will go up. New or slightly-used it is still a house.
I still don't understand why the housing-starts statistics are such an important indicator of the health of the economy, when there seems to be a glut of houses on the market already. How to reduce the glut is to open the borders even further population pressure demanding homes so developers, (whom I have heard are also lining out for bailout money) will be able to hire more construction workers , i.e., illegal immigrants instead of higher priced Americans. And commercial developers are trying to be in front of the line, just to keep their already-fading profitability of all the commercial projects they built that are renting to continually failing retailers. Do we really need any more commercial space now that vacancies are becoming widespread?

Originally Posted by vortex

I still don't understand why the housing-starts statistics are such an important indicator of the health of the economy, when there seems to be a glut of houses on the market already.

I agree, the housing start statistics is an outdated economic indicator, from after WWII when the US population was rapidly growing (baby boom) and people were moving en mass to suburbia. Well guess what we cannot sustain that, we are running out of water and developable land, plus with half of our manufacturing outsourced people don't have the income to buy bigger houses.