New Home Sales Unexpectedly Fell by 2.4% in November

[Purveyor]

Dow Jones Newswire

Wednesday, December 24, 2003 10:07 AM ET

WASHINGTON -- Sales of new, single-family homes retreated in November for the third straight month amid rising mortgage rates.

New-home sales fell 2.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.082 million, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.

<snip>

The report was weaker than Wall Street expected. A Dow Jones Newswires-CNBC survey of 14 economists predicted sales would rise 1.2%% to a 1.118 million annual rate.

<snip>

The housing market has thrived, carrying the economy during the 2001 recession and subsequent slump. However, analysts say rising mortgage rates is cooling the torrid growth rates of recent years. The NAHB predicts 30-year mortgage rates will rise to 6.5% by mid-2004 from the current levels of around 5.8%.

[annagull]

1. With all this "unexpected" news

shouldn't they fire all their PollyAnna analysts?

[JeebusH]

6. wasn't unexpected to us here ...

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

19. yeah, we are used to that in NY... we have a slump/greed cycle

here in real estate going back as far as records are kept

[cosmicdot]

2. another unexpected? ... what about *'s week of 'seeming breakthroughs'

"Week of Seeming Breakthroughs for Bush"
http://start.earthlink.net/track?add=1&id=1017946&url=/newsarticle%3Fcat%3D9%26aid%3DD7VKMQLO0_story


fiddle-dee, it's full-holiday mode

[RebelOne]

3. Rumor is Washington Mutual just laid off 300 jobs.

Check out http://www.fuckedcompany.com
This site is the best for getting the lowdown on who laying off, going bankrupt or shutting down.

Rumor has it Washington Mutual just laid off 300 jobs in its Home Loans and Apprasial Group. Word is 500 more kicked out the door sometime around June.
When: 12/19/2003
Company: Washington Mutual

[Syncronaut Seven]

9. haha, I delivered a pizza

to someone at WaMu Home Loans and Apprasial Group last week. The woman was visibly angry, said she was having a VERY bad day and needed a pizza. No tip, go figure.

I'm an engineer, I deliver pizzas for a living. Welcome to the new world order.

Harrad.

[mikehiggins]

4. This recovery is dancing on a knife's edge

one shove and there's blood all over the place.

Why do you think the administration is downplaying the Mad Cow thing, trying to assauge fears by appearing to be on top of it?

Our trading partners aren't buying the act, or the beef.

Take a chunk like that (many billions of dollars) out of our exports, plus the hit domestic sales are going to take as word gets out, and you have economic disaster for agribusiness.

Say goodbye to that 10,000 mark on the dow

[Garion_55]

5. White house economists???

The report was weaker than Wall Street expected. A Dow Jones Newswires-CNBC survey of 14 economists predicted sales would rise 1.2%% to a 1.118 million annual rate.



how are these people getting it so wrong?


here is my take on the greatest economic boom in 20 years (LOL!)

its like an 80 year old guy and viagra. the guy is limping along, not able to perform like he used to. so he takes a shot of viagra (tax cuts) and BOOM! everything is working again like he is a kid so he goes out and uses it. The problem is that once the viagra has worn off, you are still stuck with an 80 year old guy who has problems getting it up and now he has just drained himself of any energy he might have had left and now he has to pay for the viagra.

[teryang]

7. Analysis of the new "recovery"

This opinion piece from the WP was posted by Maeve on the Stock Market thread. It's really worth reading:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26303-2003Dec23.html

Un-American Recovery

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, December 24, 2003; Page A15

<And there are some indices that make even the productivity increases pale by comparison. Corporations have been having a bang-up recovery all along, it turns out; they are about to experience their seventh straight quarter of profit growth. The operating earnings of the 500 companies on the Standard and Poor's index, researchers at First Call in Boston estimate, will rise by 21.9 percent over last year. Who could ask for anything more?

Well, the American people, for one. Since July the average hourly wage increase for the 85 million Americans who work in non-supervisory jobs in offices and factories is a flat 3 cents. Wages are up just 2.1 percent since November 2002 -- the slowest wage growth we've experienced in 40 years. Economists at the Economic Policy Institute have been comparing recoveries of late, looking into the growth in corporate-sector income in each of the nine recoveries the United States has gone through since the end of World War II. In the preceding eight, the share of the corporate income growth going to profits averaged 26 percent, and never exceeded 32 percent. In the current recovery, however, profits come to 46 percent of the corporations' additional income. >

Comments:

The above article needs to be read in its entirety to be appreciated. Our economy has undergone some really substantial changes according to this author which lessens the significance of any alleged recovery for the average person.

As far as real estate goes:

The inventory of new homes and higher end homes in my area is obviously increasing quite a bit. I bought a home eighteen months ago to accomadate a job move, and became familiar with the local market then. Now I'm looking for a business because I have been laid off and reading all the real estate literature put out here.

Residential prices are definitely leveling off. Reasonably priced (used) 3/2 homes are not that common although their prices have stabilized recently. Luxury condos and gated community living properties appear to be in glut while construction proceeds unabated. A lot of ads show reduced prices and I don't think its hype because they didn't have to say this last year.

[cliss]

12. That's interesting that "construction

proceeds unabated". I'm seeing this here in Portland, too. I don't know if housing sales have tapered off.

I would say that's about the worst thing they can do. If housing sales are contracting, then the need to cut back production in order to keep supply prices stable. Just simple economics.

[teryang]

16. This is what went on Texas in the eighties

The BFEE and their banking industry supporters can keep this type of construction going long after the market for it has disappeared. Then after the inevitable bankruptcies the same people with a different corporate front will come in and buy these properties from the banks for a fraction of their costs and sell them for huge profits. Consumers and taxpayers will suffer the losses of the failed loan guaranties and other government guaranteed accounts.

Thanks for your comment it reminded me of the situation in Texas when I lived there in the eighties and its scandalous aftermath. This is what provided the BFEE with their first MEGAFRAUD proceeds. Of course, this fraud which went into the hundreds of billions was justified as part of their scheme to finance guerilla war and terrorism in Central America.

While this was going on, I asked a friend whose family owned a savings and loan why he got out of such a lucrative business. He told me, "because I am not a thief."

[reprobate]

20. It happened in Florida too.

It was a decade in some cases before the commercial properties that were started got completed. In other cases they were finally just bulldozed down. Look for the same thing to happen again.

[54anickel]

21. This paragraph seems so fitting to the idea of putting Raygun on the

dime:
In short, what we have here resembles a pre-New Deal recovery more than it does any period of prosperity between the presidencies of the second Roosevelt and the second Bush. The great balancing act of the New Deal -- the fostering of vibrant unions, the legislation of minimum wages and such, in a conscious effort to spread prosperity and boost consumption -- has come undone. (The federal minimum wage has not been raised since 1997.) And the problem with pre-new deal recoveries is that they never created lasting prosperity.

And the last paragraph is what the dem candidates should be taking very seriously.

Thanks for posting.

[are_we_united_yet]

8. "The report was weaker than Wall Street expected. "

Does anybody here respect the predictions of Wall Street?
Does anybody here respect Wall Street?

[Ernesto]

10. INFLATION is around the corner

Any old anti-deficet hawk will tell you that much. Record government borrowing with no appreciable return, the collapse of US currency value and the fed is about shit-outa-band aids. Folks this may spell the end for bushco, but it ain't going to be an easy 2004 for most of us.... Happy New Year!......... Almost forgot: Welcome to Purveyor!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

18. Yep, and so is Greenspan. He's just itching to raise rates...

...and that will absolutely kill any pretense of an economic recovery by the NeoCon Junta.

Yes...it will get VERY rough, particularly for those folks that have large amounts of credit card debt. As the Fed rates go up, so will credit card interest rates, mortgage rates, bank loan rates, etc.

[mbperrin]

11. Wow! Look at the *Bush economic machine

go!

[goforit]

13. But isn't this normal for November?.....Do people buy homes this time?

Is this compared to all Novembers of every year?

I guess these questions won't matter if the numbers are rigged
anyway.

[mbperrin]

14. They bought last November....

here's a link:
http://www.census.gov/const/newressales_0211.pdf

[mbperrin]

15. Here's another for Nov 1998

http://www.census.gov/const/C25/c25_9811.txt

[R Hickey]

17. If the value of the Dollar is cut in half, the price of stocks must double

When the dollar drops by a third against Euros and gold bullion, the price of our stocks gets propelled upward by the corresponding amount.

Devaluing the dollar automatically inflates the stock market, and then Bush takes credit, false credit, for making US stocks worth more dollars. More shrunken dollars.

If Bush causes the US Dollar to become worth what is now 'one penny,' then stock prices should increase one-hundred-fold. The Bushovic's actions point to a strong desire by them to do exactly this, it appears to be their plan, to make the dollar worth less.

If these Bushovics continue to devalue the dollar, we may eventually start using wheel-barrels full of hundred-dollar bills to buy a single loaf of bread.

When any currency is decreasing in value, it is axiomatic that inflation of everything is just around the corner. Gold is THE leading indicator of an inflationary spiral, so I would say we already have inflation.