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发帖数: 25274 | 1 Distressed sales at lowest level since at least 2008
股市暴跌中...
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Sales of existing homes fell 1.5% in May as
fewer cheap homes were sold, a trade group said Thursday.
The National Association of Realtors said sales for the month yielded a
seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.55 million, down from an unrevised pace
of 4.62 million in April. Economists polled by MarketWatch anticipated a 4.
6 million annual rate in May.
Compared to May 2011, sales were up 9.6%, the 11th straight month of year-on
-year gains.
Mortgage rates, which Freddie Mac separately reported reaching a record low,
have helped contribute to those gains. The Federal Reserve on Wednesday
said it’s planning to keep ultra-low interest rates at least through the
end of 2014.
Still, sales are still running well below the peak of around 7 million
before the housing bubble burst.
Though the U.S. economy hit a little soft spot, the May pullback largely
reflected an inventory shortage in lower-priced homes, according to Lawrence
Yun, chief economist of the NAR.
“There’s plenty of buyer activity going on,” Yun said.
One piece of evidence he gave for the lack of low-priced homes on the market
was that median prices gained 7.9% to $182,600 on a year-on-year basis. It
was the highest since June 2010, when the first-time homebuyer tax credit
was about to expire.
That big gain is due to a shift in the types of homes being sold, rather
than re-sale price gains, he said.
April’s price gain was revised to 7.8% rather than 10.1%. A separate gauge
released Thursday by the Federal Housing Finance Agency said prices on a
seasonally adjusted basis rose 3% compared to a year ago in April.
The NAR’s data also showed inventories declined 0.4% to 2.49 million, or
roughly a 20% decline from May 2011. At the current sales pace, there are 6.
6 months of supply. Historically, six months of inventory are considered
normal — which hasn’t been the case since 2006, before the housing bubble
burst.
However, Yun pointed out that in so-called judicial foreclosure states, like
New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, shadow inventories haven’t moved
much. Shadow inventories represent homes near or in foreclosure that haven’
t yet hit the market. That overhang could impede a recovery there, Yun said.
In those states, judges rather than trustees determines whether a property
can be foreclosed.
Yelena Shulyatyeva, an economist of BNP Paribas, said she expects home sales
activity to be steady in the near term.
“Mortgage applications to purchase have been relatively flat since March
pointing to a flat trajectory in home sales going forward as lenders work
through the previously submitted applications,” she said in a note to
clients. “Credit conditions remain tight, particularly for mortgages, and
the traditional channels of monetary policy have been clogged as many
potential homebuyers are still unable to take advantage of the historically
low mortgage rates.”
Fewer all-cash sales
Distressed sales, representing both foreclosures and short sales, accounted
for 25% of all transactions, the lowest figure since the NAR started
tracking the data in 2008 and down from 28% in April.
All-cash transactions accounted for 28% of all transactions vs. 29% in April
. Investors made up 17% of all transactions, down from 20% in April.
First-time buyers aren’t stepping in, however — representing 34% of all
transactions, down from 35% in April and off normal levels of around 40%.
Yun said repeat buyers are behind the transactions. He pointed out that 80%
of all homeowners have some equity.
Other data released Thursday weren’t as positive.
First-time jobless claims barely budged in the latest week, while a
Philadelphia-area manufacturing survey plunged deeper into negative
territory in June. | i*****8
发帖数: 2691 | | i****n
发帖数: 1283 | 3 摘要：
美联储承诺维持超低利率到至少2014年，但最新统计月份的房屋销售量还是下降了。
4月的“挣钱房”（卖价比买价高的房子）比原先的统计数字向下修正了一些。
房屋库存量的好消息：房屋库存量下降了
房屋库存量的坏消息，还有很多foreclosure房子没有hit market，还是影子库存，没
有统计在库存量里。 |
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