Truth is treason in an empire of lies.
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/23/2015 10:07 -0500
With homebuilder sentiment slipping, blamed on the weather (despite improvement in the Northeast), Architecture billings down, and lumber prices down, it should not be totally surprising that existing home sales collapsed in January, which they just did tumbling -4.9% against expectations of -1.8% to a worse than expected 4.82 million SAAR (4.95 expected). This was the biggest January drop since 2010, and is the lowest existing home sales since April.
Oh – and before the talking heads blame the weather – the biggest drop in home sales was in The West (with its warm, dry, sunny home-buying climate). Considering that existing home sales most recent peak in 2014 failed to take out the previous government-sponsored peak in 2013 and remains 30% or more below the 2005 peak, and claims that the housing recovery is in tact are greatly exaggerated.
Lower highs and the weakest sales since April 2014
Last year it was the “weather’s” fault, when California led the decline. Guess what: in January 2015, California, aka the “West” again saw the biggest drop:
So we can’t blame the weather… but since Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist said the housing market got off to a somewhat disappointing start to begin the year with January closings down throughout the country, something has to be blamed, right? We know: let’s blame lack of supply…
“January housing data can be volatile because of seasonal influences, but low housing supply and the ongoing rise in home prices above the pace of inflation appeared to slow sales despite interest rates remaining near historic lows,” he said.
“Realtors are reporting that low rates are attracting potential buyers, but the lack of new and affordable listings is leading some to delay decisions.”
… for lack of transactions.
There is only one problem: if there was not enough supply, existing home prices would rise not, well, see the chart below:
Slowly but surely, all the lies and easy money propaganda is falling apart.
We don’t grocery shop every week, but yesterday we spent $227.00 for the wife and I, that should cover two weeks.
Granted, $73.00 of that total was on bourbon and IPA for me, the rest was a turkey breast, 3lbs of crab legs, a few snacks and assorted veggies for green smoothies.
We are debt free. How the hell are family’s of four surviving? No wonder house sales are declining, just wait until gas prices start to rise. And for some reason they have even though oil prices are still down.
Radio this morning said the 13c rise per gallon was due to refinery/labor/weather/made up reasons.
We’ve noticed gas prices here in Socal have jumped up above $3 in the past week. Amazing that the Exxon refinery down in Carson exploded just before the bump in price. Gotta have an excuse, I guess.
Steel workers are also striking at refineries, don’t know how that affects production… or oil [rices but must have been a good enough reason to raise gas pprices.
Nobody is shopping at the malls, either. I suppose this is why they pulled the scary terrorist mall threat bullshit out of their ass – to explain away the lack of sales.
Yep! Foreclosure Salas notices dropped off to about one page a day over he winter.
Now we’re back up to four pages so listed foreclosures a day, day in and day out.. Things must be really good out there.
MA
God ,you people are so depressing. Go do some more shopping . It will be good for your souls and you’ll help the economy.
bb thinks buying chinese made shit makes depressed people happy. and helps the economy..HITF does that even work?
What bb really wants is to haul rubber dog turds from the ROC so he can spend more time with little bb and picking cat crap out of the litter box at Loves truck stops.
Now that is depressing.
I’ve been a real estate appraiser for 30 years, last year i made $23,000 and so far in 2015
i’ve made $1,500. Luckily were debt free, use a woodburning stove and have a big garden.
Anyway it’s 11:33 am right now and i’m off to my part time dog walkers job.
IGOR
I’m sorry for your plight, but thanks for the chuckle.
IGOR… if you’re not too old to relocate & need the work, then you should consider relocating to Tarrant County TX (Fort Worth)… it’s ridiculously busy here (for at least the past three years – with only one noticeable slow-down to about half-pace last winter). I am currently working on a load of 10 orders at full fee, with due dates out to March 6th. (& I’m just a typical one-man operation).