Good News for the Housing Market

In a sea of bad news since last year for housing, there have been some recent signs of recovery. The National Association of Realtors, which this company belongs to, reported that existing home sales, including single family,townhomes, condos and coops,?in December of 2008, jumped 6.5% to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.74 million units from an a pace of 4.45 million units in November. However, take into account that this still below the pace of December a year ago which was 4.91 million units. Also another bit of good news is that the national housing inventory fell 11.7% in December to 3.68 million homes available for sale. This number represents a 9.3 month supply of existing homes, which is down from an 11.2 month supply in November. The final bit of good news for Buyers is that home prices continue to fall significantly, and this has also contributed to the increase in existing home sales.

The President of the NAR, Charles McMillan has stated that it is an excellent time for first time buyers. Homes are now selling for less than replacement costs, mortgage rates are better than they have ever been, inventory is still high, and sellers are more flexible than we have seen in a long time. Freddie Mac has announced that the national average commitment rate for a 30 year conventional fixed rate mortgage fell to 5.29 % in December from 6.09 % in November.

With all these changes in the housing market it is understandable that single family home sales alone rose?7.0 % in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.26 million compared to 3.98 million in November. For all of 2008, single family sales fell 11.9 %. There was also good news for condos and coops as their sales increased 2.1 % in December at an annually adjusted rate of 480,000 units from 470,000 units in November.

The final bit of good news is that most of the growth in sales took place in the West as existing home sales here jumped 13.5 % to an annual rate of 1.25 million in December, which is 31.6 % higher than a year ago.

Take note that this bit of good news was copied from a report of the National Associate of Realtors dated January 26, 2009.