FL Home Sales Increase For 21st Month Year-to-Year, Median Prices for Third Straight Month
ORLANDO, Fla., June 22, 2010 – "Sales of existing homes in Florida rose 18 percent in May, marking 21 months that sales activity has increased in the year-to-year comparison, according to the latest housing data released by Florida Realtors.
A total of 16,745 single-family existing homes sold statewide last month compared to 14,172 homes sold in May 2009 (see chart above). The statewide existing-home median price of $140,400 in May was slightly higher – by $300 – than April's statewide existing-home median price of $140,100. It marks the third month in a row that the statewide existing-home median price has increased over the previous month's median."
21 Comments:
Sorry Mark but the posting does not fit with the story two days ago, which showed a 33% decline in sales for May.
http://tinyurl.com/25bzzux
http://tinyurl.com/245m883
You are looking at closing numbers, which were driven by the tax credit, which is now expired. If you look at the number of pending sales you see a collapse that cannot be papered over by the real estate publications.
The national Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) declined 14% SA (28% NSA) when the October 2009 tax credit expired.
We will find out on July 1 the decline for the April 2010 tax credit expiry. I'll take the under on a national 25% SA decline. Probably, it will be worse in Florida with the BP gusher in the gulf still uncontained.
Good catch VangeIV, thanks for the links...
Are you takin' the under or the over, juandos?
Once again for you libertarian pinheads. There is NO residential real estate market without government. The list of acronyms supporting the market is mind boggling: Fannie, Freddie, FHA, quantitative Federal Reserve, Treasury tax credits for the incarcerated, HOPE, HAMP, HAFA. It's endless but irrelevant. The second leg down in the real estate market is almost a month old. Likewise for the double dip recession.
Doncha ya luv my handle, "1"?
But you should be real happy right now. The Congress did not extend unemployment benefits. That will really work great for aggregate consumer demand. 1.25 million people will have no income starting next week, but food stamp debit cards will skyrocket; and a quarter million will fall off the unemployed rolls every week until, I guess, there is no money paid to the unemployed, except food stamps.
Oh, let's not forget local government. 300-500 thousand teachers will be unemployed next Friday.
A double dip recession is in the bag. Q42010 GDP will be negative. And if the stock market collapses (remember Carpe Diem is the ultimate contrarian indicator) in the near term (something about a decline in gross profit margins), Q32010 GDP will be negative. Q2 is already baked in the cake as being positive.
it's always possible to cherrypick markets, but when you look at the country as a whole, things do not look good:
http://investmenttools.com/median_and_average_sales_prices_of_houses_sold_in_the_us.htm
and show signs of getting worse as mortgage applications are down as well and making dramatic new lows in spite of the lowest rates in a generation.
http://calculatedriskimages.blogspot.com/2010/06/mba-purchase-index-june-9-2010.html
juandos'flyboybuddy whines yet again: "There is NO residential real estate market without government"...
There is of course nothing credible to back up such an inane comment...
"But you should be real happy right now. The Congress did not extend unemployment benefits blah! blah! blah!"...
Hmmm, Margaret Thatcher had a saying for people like you: "The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money"...
I think you could use a little of this: basic economics...
"Oh, let's not forget local government. 300-500 thousand teachers will be unemployed next Friday"...
And the problem is what?
Don't like it, talk to a teachers' union...
I'm sure you'll have lots to talk about...
To sum up the article, the union wants more teachers and less accountability.
Vangel: The post is about the Florida real estate market while your links refer to the national market. Nice try but no cigar.
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bill maybe VangeIV might have something there even though the particular links didn't mention Florida specifically...
Consider the following from the Palm Beach Post dated June 23, 2010: New homes sales collapse as tax credit incentive expires
(skip)
In the South, which includes Florida and 16 other states, new home sales fell 25 percent in May from April, and 17 percent from May of 2009...
bill-
i think vangel's point was that trying to use florida as a proxy for the whole nation is misleading and that despite the beginnings of a regional stabilization there, the national figures are not no constructive.
he's also drawing a distinction between closing numbers and pending sales that can be quite instructive.
Fair enough. But here is some more of the article which might shed some light on the situation:
"The bleak data from the Commerce Department follows Tuesday's National Association of Realtors report that sales of existing homes nationwide dipped just 2 percent from April, and were up 18 percent in Florida.
One reason for the difference is the Realtors association data tracks the number of home closings, while the new home sales report is on the number of contracts signed.
Builders didn't appear too bothered by May's construction declines. Looking long-term, Crowe still expects 2010 sales to exceed 2009 and predicts sales will pick up in the third and fourth quarters of the year.
Andrew Zuckerman, CEO of Coconut Creek-based Zuckerman Homes, is also optimistic. He's even looking to buy land.
"We believe prices have definitely stabilized," said Zuckerman, who has communities in Hobe Sound and Palm City. "Other builders are out buying and everyone is positioning."
The national median sales price in May on new homes was $200,900, down slightly from April's $202,900.
But Zuckerman acknowledged sales were flat in May and that concerns over the economy continue to plague buyers.
"Until we see unemployment brought down to acceptable levels, it leaves a large group of potential buyers on the sideline," Zuckerman said.
A drop in new home construction can contribute to that unemployment.
Each new home built creates, on average, the equivalent of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in taxes paid to local and federal authorities, according to the National Association of Home Builders.
Jill DiDonna, senior vice president for sales and marketing at Sunrise-based GL Homes, agreed that May sales were slow.
But she too was positive about the rest of the year. GL Homes will open a new community, Canyon Trails, in July west of Boynton Beach, adding to five other developments it has in the area.
"The year-to-date numbers are still better than last year and the year before," DiDonna said. "We feel pretty upbeat about the market.""
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/real-estate/new-homes-sales-collapse-as-tax-credit-incentive-765568.html
bill-
if you want to call this a housing price recovery, i'm not really sure what to say.
http://calculatedriskimages.blogspot.com/2010/06/corelogic-house-price-index-april-2010.html
prices are down significantly since the recession "ended".
lennar just had disappointing numbers.
builder confidence remains at terribly distressed levels.
http://calculatedriskimages.blogspot.com/2010/06/builder-confidence-june-2010.html
mortgage applications continue to break lower despite historically low rates.
http://calculatedriskimages.blogspot.com/2010/06/mba-purchase-index-june-9-2010.html
housing starts are at a post war low in units, which is breathtaking considering population growth and the only reason the market has not collapsed further, but there's not much more tail wind to pick up there.
re-default rates for mortgages modified through federal programs are approaching 75%.
jump in if you want to, but i'm sure not going to.
comping moderately well against the 2 worst years in a generation isn't that impressive, nor are comments from zuckerman about stabilization all that credible. go back and look at the track record of his prognostications through the melt down.
the data does not bear him out.
morganovich: I am not saying that the real estate sector is booming. I am saying that a bottom has been reached and that it is beginning to recover. The information you cited actually reinforces this premise.
BTW, NYC apartment sales are up 80% over the same period in 2009:
"Sales of Manhattan apartments picked up during the second quarter, to the fastest pace since the summer of 2008, an illustration that the market has been recovering during the spring selling season, usually the busiest time of the year.
A Wall Street Journal review of closed-sales filings with New York City Department of Finance shows that during the second quarter, which ends June 30, sales were running 80% above the pace reported a year ago.
[SALES]
Analysts said there has likely been a modest recovery in prices as well. Major brokerage firms are scheduled to release quarterly market reports on price trends next week.
Even so, some brokers have cautioned that a further recovery in the luxury market would depend on the pace of recovery for the U.S. economy and the health of New York's important finance sector."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703615104575329291670442662.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines
Obviously, the economy could tank again and drag down real estate further but I do not believe that this will happen based on current economic data. We are in a modest recovery despite the headwinds created by the Obama administration and the real estate recovery should continue.
Speaking from the front lines of the real estate wars, Fort Myers,FL, I can promise you that there is no recovery here. Prices are still going down, foreclosures are going up,and unemployment is up. There is NO construction at all, no houses, no high rises, no condos, no strip centers. Vacant houses are stripped of appliances, fixtures, well equipment, carpets, wiring, plumbing faster than the police can fill out reports.
Virtually all home sales are short sales where everyone but the buyer loses. Our local economy was built around home building, with no new homes our entire economy is in a death spiral. Fort Myers is listed as a housing market that will never recover here.
http://247wallst.com/2010/05/13/the-thirteen-housing-markets-that-will-never-recover/
Anon 2:49pm
There is a recovery because the dead body of the market has been revived and given transfusions.
The patient has now being nursed to recover and is in a stable condition.
When the patient is discharged and when he recovers fully he will be productive above the dead level so it should be all uphill from there for sometime.
Fortunately real property never dies.
Anon: "Never" is a very long time. I would suggest that such a comment is just as foolish as were those made by people during the boom who stated that prices could never go down. In nominal terms, real estate prices today will seem absurdly cheap 20 years from now. The key is surviving the short run during real estate crashes. Time will always bail you out for so long as we have a fiat currency.
bill-
i think the jury is still out on that one. this "stabilization" is by now means certain and has been driven by enormous exogenous support.
i think you'll see a price decline tomorrow when the national case shiller home prices number comes out.
with money supply (m3) contracting sharply and with economic measures like ERCI showing stress, more deflation in housing prices is still a very plausible outcome.
The ECRI leading indicator produced by the Economic Cycle Research Institute plummeted yet again last week to -6.9, pointing to contraction in the US by the end of the year. It is dropping faster that at any time in the post-War era.
you can point to a few regions in which there may have been some snap back, but the aggregate numbers and leading indicators (like mortgage aps and builder confidence) show a great deal of risk nationally.
i'm not sure how you take declines in mortgages and confidence along with terrible (and worsening) construction numbers and spiking re-defaults as a sign of stabilization. they look to me like harbingers of tough times to come.
these dramatic federal programs are just kicking the can down the road and preventing the needed adjustment, not solving the problem.
morganovich: If there is a short term decline in housing demand it is likely similar to the cash for clunkers phenomenon whereby future demand was brought forward for a period of time but the trend line of more car sales ultimately continued upward. It really seems to me that you are grasping for straws and really hoping for another recession for some reason.
The best indicator that the economy is in recovery has to be Paul Krugman claiming today that we are now entering a depression!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/opinion/28krugman.html
How does it feel to be on the same side of this issue as Krugman?
bill-
i would argue that it is you grasping for signs of stabilization and recovery. the data looks pretty grim to me.
i'm not rooting for a recession, but rather trying to make a dispassionate assessment. i'm trying to be right, not support a dogmatic argument. i'm not some perma bear. i'm actually quite the opposite. but housing will not behave the way autos did. there is still too much distressed debt in that space and credit is still very tight despite low rates. autos did not have an overhang of similar magnitude.
i appreciate both your viewpoint and the civility of our discussion, but let's stick to the facts at hand as opposed to attempting to ascribe ulterior motives to views as that isn't going to get us anywhere useful.
FWIW, it appears that you and i agree about krugman and his credibility, but, frankly, i don't really take his views into account in developing my own. you cannot recant your views every time someone you don't like/respect agrees with you...
Bill. I agree that "never" is a bit of an exaggeration for most but what about the retired population who bought houses in a bad market? That "short run" you speak of is pushing 5 years now. Our construction unemployment is probably well over 50% for those that stayed. We still have 25,000 homes for sale and many of those are 5 or 6 year old new homes. We've got to move a lot of houses to get out of this mess. I don't have the numbers but I'd bet that foreclosures in Fort Myers may outpace sales.
Come on down,you can't buy a house any cheaper anywhere but Detroit!
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