Welcome back to a beautiful Fall day with the potential for a substantial amount of pumpkin picking in the forecast.
The September figures for both New Residential Construction and Existing Home Sales were released this week, and aside from fluctuations over the past few months, things look solid when compared side-by-side with the same time 12-months ago.
New Residential Construction, as you might be aware, is broken down into 3 parts; Building Permits, Housing Starts, and Housing Completions. Housing Starts (Privately-owned housing starts), were up 15% from August, and 10.2% Above September 2010. This is very encouraging, especially for the Western Region of the U.S., which had figures that were substantially higher than the average (over both the 1-month and the 12-month periods). Building Permits and Housing Completions were also up over the longer-term, but not at the elevated levels as were the Housing Starts.
Existing-Home Sales, which includes completed transactions for single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, dropped 3% from August, but are up over 11% from September 2010, per the National Association of Realtors® (NAR). In terms of regional variations, the long-haul big winner was the Midwest, checking in with in excess of a 17% jump in Existing Home Sales from September 2010 through September 2011.
The chief economist for the NAR, Lawrence Yun, said that, “Existing-home sales have bounced around this year, staying relatively close to the current level in most months”, and he calls it "Irony" that the "affordability conditions have improved to historic highs and more creditworthy borrowers are trying to purchase homes", but, "the share of contract failures is double the level of September 2010", and he interpreted this as pointing to "an unfulfilled demand". Contract failures, incidentally, can result from a declined mortgage application, appraisal values below the negotiated price, issues resulting from the home inspection report, job loss, etc.
In sum, Housing Starts up 10.2% from a year ago, coupled with a 11% increase in Existing-Home Sales from a year ago, would tend to point to improving market conditions. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Please explain - we'd love to hear your angle on these figures.
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Have a Great Weekend, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog: http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Websites: http://www.lease2buy.com and http://www.homerunhomes.com
TAGS: #NewConstruction #ExistingHomeSales #Residential #Housing #Building #Permits #singlefamily #cancellations #townhome #condo #Realtor #appraisal #NAR