Has the Media Confused You ?

June 24, 2010

One week housing prices are up. Another week housing volume is down. And this morning it is "Housing market woes" in the Sun newspaper.The sub title did say that Inland Empire numbers were up slightly.

Many news reporters yesterday were bemoaning the decline in new home sales as a sign that without stimulus monies, the real estate market was once more in a "dip". I am not a new home sales agent and I do not track that data. However, could it not be that the number of new homes selling is declining because the number of new homes being built is also declining. Builders are not constructing new homes. They are selling their already permitted and under construction properties. As fewer homes are on the market, my logic says that the number of sales will decline.

So much for an area that I do not track.

As for the resale market in the 14 communities that I do track, the volume in May was only significantly off in 2 of the communities and then only by 15 sales. 9 of the 14 communities actually hit their peak volume in 2009 which could make the 2010 volume somewhat less as prices stabilized. The volume in 11 of the communities is better in 2010 than it was in 2003. A reminder - these numbers reflect closed sales as reported in the IMRMLS.

Since I am not an economist nor do I have a crystal ball, I shall continue to report numbers and allow my readers to draw their own conclusions about the present state of the real estate market in our local area.