Sunday, February 15, 2009

Markets Are Working: CA Home Sales Increase +85% in December As Home Prices Fall By -41.5%

Home sales increased 85% in December in California compared with the same period a year ago, while the median price of an existing home fell 41.5%, the California Association of Realtors reported (CAR). Sales of existing, single-family detached homes in California totaled 544,580 in December at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate, according to information collected by CAR from more than 90 local REALTOR associations statewide. Statewide home resale activity increased 85% from the revised 294,520 sales pace recorded in December 2007 (see chart above).

The median price of an existing, single-family detached home in California during December 2008 was $281,100, a 41.5% decrease from the revised $480,820 median for December 2007, C.A.R. reported (see chart above).

MP: From what you hear in the media, it would seem like we are years away from a real estate recovery, when the statistical data suggest otherwise. Falling home prices and falling mortgage rates are fueling a real estate recovery in states like California. In other words, markets are working. As the Law of Demand predicts, demand curves slope downward, and when home prices fall, the number of homes sold increases.

10 Comments:

At 2/15/2009 11:51 PM, Blogger QT said...

Nice data although I'll believe it when Ed Glaeser comes down on the side of recovery.

 
At 2/16/2009 10:15 AM, Blogger bobble said...

here's an amazing deal. near 1970's pricing with positive cash flow in california!

check it out:

 
At 2/16/2009 11:14 AM, Blogger bix1951 said...

Thanks for reporting positive developments which are not easily found in the "big news"

 
At 2/16/2009 4:28 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Another head fake? Wake me up when there is a 6 month supply of inventory and then you can talk about recovery.

And now, your public service announcement: If you eliminate California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada (the foreclosure states), the seasonally adjusted annual sales rate declined by 14.6%* from Q4.07 to Q4.08 not 5.9% as reported by NAR.

*Source: blogger's calculation

 
At 2/16/2009 5:16 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"If you eliminate California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada (the foreclosure states), the seasonally adjusted annual sales rate declined by 14.6%* from Q4.07 to Q4.08 not 5.9% as reported by NAR."...

Have something credible to back that up?

About half of all mortgages for blacks and Hispanics are subprime, versus roughly one-sixth for whites. Not surprisingly, the biggest home price collapses have occurred in heavily Hispanic cities such as Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix, and Los Angeles...ROFLMAO!

 
At 2/16/2009 10:20 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Now as I understand markets, there is a market for a luxury cars, a market for middling cars, a market for low-end cars, and - for hamburger flippers - even a market for low-end used cars.

So if housing markets worked the way they should, there should be a market for luxury homes, a market for middling homes, and a market for low-end homes. But I'm still waiting for a low-end ownership market accessible to hamburger flippers.

What's up with that?

 
At 2/16/2009 10:30 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

bobbie said:

here's an amazing deal. near 1970's pricing with positive cash flow in california!


Yes, in this country, EVERYONE can become wealthy except the hamburger flipper, whose dollars provide the positive cash flow.

Is this a great country or what?

 
At 2/17/2009 1:59 AM, Blogger wcw said...

The OFHEO house price index for California started 1975 at 42. It is roughly ten times that level now.

If you think 400 is "near" 40, you must vote GOP. Only a Republican can be that innumerate in public.

Idiot.

 
At 2/17/2009 10:22 PM, Blogger OBloodyHell said...

>> If you eliminate California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada

> Have something credible to back that up?

Uh.....?

> heavily Hispanic cities such as Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix, and Los Angeles

Those would be the biggest cities in... Nevada, Florida, Arizona, and California???

I'm not sure you get your point...?

 
At 2/17/2009 10:54 PM, Blogger OBloodyHell said...

> wealthy except the hamburger flipper

First Clue About The Universe #1:NO ONE is supposed to "get wealthy as a hamburger flipper"



You use the income you get as a hamburger flipper to survive while learning/developing some skill which allows you to become something more than a "hamburger flipper".

I grasp that, as a libtard, you don't get that, you want "your money for nothing and your chicks for free", figuring that's how everyone else gets it. You incorrectly see the world as a zero-sum game where "A gets money only by stealing it from B", instead of the +-sum game it is, where "A and B, for the most part, exchange what they have voluntarily and BOTH become richer".

According to Mark Knopfler himself:
The lead character in "Money for Nothing" is a guy who works in the hardware department in a television/custom kitchen/refrigerator/microwave appliance store. He's singing the song. I wrote the song when I was actually in the store. I borrowed a bit of paper and started to write the song down in the store. I wanted to use a lot of the language that the real guy actually used when I heard him, because it was more real.

Since you probably STILL don't get it: Knopfler's point is that it's true that anyone can make a song, if they have a clue.

This bozo is a particular example. He didn't know how to turn his words into a hit song, but Knopfler did. And THAT is why Knopfler, and not the appliance delivery bozo, gets "his money for nothing and his chicks for free".

Because he has a skill people want, while the bozo does not.

And that is why Knopfler is no longer a "hamburger flipper".

Because that job doesn't pay, and sucks.

Which is why capitalism works as well as it does. Because it encourages one to do more than just flip hamburgers for one's entire life, even though it's more work to develop a skill at the same time as one is also flipping burgers.

I also point out that the promotion of this notion of life as a zero-sum-game is socially destructive, since it encourages the more clueless types to not even try.

So they wallow in misery and find excuses, rather than attempting to make more of themselves.

But Democrats love it, because it gives them a large pool of "victims" who they can lobby for the granting of unearned largesse to.

 

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