Tuesday 3 March 2009

US housing market - crash continues

The US housing crash is accelerating. The index of pending home sales, which measures sales signed but not completed, fell by 7.7 percent in January compared to December. It fell by 6.4 percent compared to the previous year.

There is no relief; no recovery in sight.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is more to come. US homes are still way overvalued.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Yes, let us clever Brits laugh scornfully at our American cousins who allowed average prices to rise over seventy per cent (actually, they doubled in the zoned zone and climbed modestly in flatland) while over in the UK prices went up by, er, two hundred per cent.

Anonymous said...

So why isn't the UK housing market collapsing yet?

Anonymous said...

Anon 17:16

You aren't paying attention, look at the HPI. It is down 20%

K T Cat said...

I've been thinking a lot about this and I think I've got the solution.

How about if we borrow and spend some more?

Anonymous said...

Good morning everyone!! I'm a Brit living in Irvine California right now, the epicenter of all this Global economic Crisis, in fact I've lived here for the last 20 years.
Whoever said US Homeprices are still overvalued is partly right,it depends on the State,but let's talk about House values here in Southern CA.
We have seen a massive drop in values, the reason is, the average Buyer still can't afford to buy partly because of very high unemployment here which was only this week estimated at 10.1%
That does NOT include self employed Business Owners, Estate Agents (Realtors) etc etc, so the unemployment level is probably 13+ % right now, or more.
Couple that with lack of confidence because People are afraid to take out a Mortgage because the likelyhood of losing their income is very real with the fact that Banks now require at least 20% down and PERFECT Credit, very few People can buy even if they want to. Those that are buying right now are laughingly refered to as Knife Catchers.

It's a Blood Bath, no end in sight, the massive bailouts will fail, the economy here is going to crash and burn. There is nothing to stop it.

Mind you, the weather is lovely!

Cheers then!!

Anonymous said...

Hi all,

Here's an interesting one for you.

An analysis of the current economic crisis we are all unfortunately facing but looked at from a slightly different perspective.

This analysis looks at past banking crises and how they have effected various aspects of the economy.

It is titled The Banking Crisis - Where are we now? (follow the link should you be interested) and has particularly interesting points about how the previous banking crises has effected assets including property prices.