NAR Research

In Utah, is expected an increase in home sales prices :6-8% next year. Houses are selling! There are lees distress homes on the market than 5 months ago in Utah CO. and SLC CO.

The housing bubble has already been deflated. I no longer hear real estate agents bitching about their houses staying on the market too long.

This is great news for Florida! Hopefully 2010 will be more profitable!

I, for one, would rather see NAR spend my money getting me a true analysis of the data than to have this guy constantly looking for silver linings. The value of an economist is in his ability to give us actionable intelligence to help us weather the storm...not to point out patterns in the storm clouds that look like cute little animals.

I knew that. Men are more likely to take the easy road.

lets get real people, it not that Men take the easy road. It has alot to do with social norms. I bet alot of you out there are parents.. how many of you let your single daughters boyfriend sleep under your roof..

I don't want to throw rain on the parade but I think the press and media are giving too much attention to the "10.1% increase" in sales as well as the "23.5 % increase in sales from a year ago"....they seem to ignore the fact that the numbers they are referring to are "seasonally adjusted annual rates"....They also seem to ignore the fact that ... See Moresales numbers for September and October were impacted tremendously by buyers rushing to buy before the tax credit expired November 30th (it has since been extended)....I did a post about this including an analysis of the numbers from NAR which shows that while ACTUAL sales were up 6% in October from November, the YTD sales for 2009 are only up less than 1% from the same period of 2008..much different thatn the 23.5% being reported....my post is at:

http://realestateconsumernews.com/real-estate-market/reports-and-headlines-say-home-sales-increased-10-1-percent-in-october-up-23-5-percent-from-a-year-ago-i-say-up-6-6-percent-for-the-month-and-almost-even-with-last-year/

Thanks to Ms. Choung for digesting this data. The primary source,HMDA is a complex site for institutions to access mass data on the buying public.
I am curious if the figure quoted above reflects simply the qualifying income of the primary breadwinner in the home buying family, or if it is reflects total household income? I am not good at ... See Moreinterpreting mass data, but the census bureau's website has a 2009 abstract (2006 numbers) that indicates $116K as median household income for 116M households in USA. In light of that, the above number would indicate that most activity is being conducted at the entry level, or least the lower level(s) of the income scale. Ms. Choung, could you elaborate for our FB fans?

Investors also would be buying up. Really missed the boat......

I wonder how some markets have sidestepped the downturn seemingly altogether... I haven't verified this, but I have heard that South Dakota is recession free. Perhaps our states have relied upon the Federal Gov't/Institutions too heavily to manage and regulate our housing markets. How about it NAR? Can you give us some insights on this perspective? Are there any bankers among us that can comment? Great Discussion. Obviously a timely subject.