The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issued their monthly joint report on August new house sales on Thursday.
The July sales rate was itself revised downward from an original estimate of 870,000 units. The stunning figure, however, was the comparison of August 2007 data with that on sales one year earlier....
According to Sudeep Reddy and Michael Corkery writing in The Wall Street Journal, "The housing market is going into a deeper chill, and consumers are starting to shiver."
Other market segments that are closely, even loosely tied to housing construction and sales are beginning to report some distress. Monday, Lowe's reduced its earnings outlook for this year and...
Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist commented that, "Mortgage rates were largely unchanged in the previous week, with long-term rates lingering at lower levels not seen since May. The recent retreat in mortgage rates has brought in an increased volume of mortgage applications, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, and pushed the share of applications for refinancing to the highest rate since April.
Probably no one who has read a paper or a website in the last 60 days expected anything different, but the monthly report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) on Tuesday confirmed that once again the sales of existing homes fell in August.
Total existing home sales which include single family homes, town homes, condos, and co-ops...
Several Executive Branch surrogates indicated late last week that the Administration was sort of willing to compromise about the role of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in solving the current credit crunch. But the announcements made and the methods proposed seem to this reporter to be little, late, and misdirected. The two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) - Freddie and Fannie - seemed a little confused about what was happening as well.
...Then, on Saturday, the Wall Street Journal quoted a top regulator (undoubtedly from OFHEO) who speculated that those portfolio limits could be lifted in....
It seemed to smack a bit of desperation at the time, but in hindsight it appears to look more like marketing genius.
Hovnanian Enterprises, Inc., one of the nation's largest homebuilders, threw open the doors of literally thousands of its newly built homes or those that were under construction last weekend and, in what media has described as a fire sale, offered deep discounts, sometimes in the six figure range, to buyers ready to make a deal.
Well, whatever it was, it apparently worked...
Housing starts in August hit the lowest level on an annualized basis since July 1995 The news would have been even worse if it were not for a substantial increase in activity in multi- family housing starts. Construction on projects with...
Even before the Federal Reserve's on Tuesday Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey showed another dramatic downturn in both long and short term interest rates for conventional mortgages.
One day after the Fed cut rates and the House of Representatives approved FHA Reform, the Senate Banking Committee approved legislation that would expand the ability of the FHA to insure mortgages, including higher-risk borrowers.
The Federal Reserve slashed benchmark interest rates by a half point in an agressive move to prevent the economy from moving into recession and to ease the pains of the housing bubble. The decision to cut the overnight federal funds rate from 5.25% to 4.75% was unanimous. This is the lowest level since May of 2006 and the first time the Fed has cut interest rates since June 2003. It was the first 1/2 point cut since November of 2002.
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