Wednesday, November 30, 2011

New Home Sales Surge in October, But Prices Fall

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - By Jason Lange
Sales of new homes rose in October and the supply of homes on the market fell to its lowest level since April of last year, showing some healing in the battered housing sector.
The Commerce Department on Monday said sales of new single-family homes edged up 1.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted 307,000-unit annual rate, which was the fastest pace in five months yet still below analysts' expectations.
The supply of new homes on the market would last 6.3 months at October's sales pace, down from 6.4 months in September.
The data fueled hopes the housing market could at least be bottoming out.
"This looks like a bottom. The market is stabilizing," said Gregory Miller, an economist at Suntrust Bank in Atlanta.

2 comments:

  1. As someone who works as a New York apartments resale specialist, I saw some increase in sales in October as well. I agree that the prices that sellers were asking were way too high, which played a part in sluggish results all year. However if banks don't continue to lend, I fear that the market is so fragile, that it can stall again, and quite easily.

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  2. I saw this article was written in Washington, does this apply to just NYC or the entire US? I'm wondering if this is applicable to the Seattle homes market.

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