The Commerce Department says new home sales fell in May from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 300,000. That was the slowest sales pace on records dating back to 1963.
It indicates that buyers left the market as federal tax credits of up to $8,000 expired at the end of April.
Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected a May sales pace of 410,000. April’s sales pace was revised downward to 446,000.
These are experts? No, buyers didn’t “leave the market” when tax credits expired – it’s a simple matter of front-loading. You offer an incentive and the people who were intending to buy bought, and grabbed $8,000 of our money. But having captured future sales with this gimmick, where’s the surprise that there are fewer sales now? I’m no genius, so if I could see this coming, what’s wrong with the experts?
For What It's Worth 
Not all “experts” are created equal
Personal liquid net worth differentiates alleged “expertise”
http://www.stonebridgefarm-ny.com/for-sale.shtml
It looks the five Noel fillies have already been put out to pasture and are not for sale.
http://www.nybreds.com/news/2010/04/26/obs-april/
Why does Noel’s partner Jeff Tucker of Stonebridge Farms in NY just give pony rides, he might make more money to give to the REAL victims of his Madoff scam.
You told us about Noel’s partner Jeff Tucker’s farm 1 1/4 years ago:
http://christopherfountain.com/2009/02/10/tuckers-horse-farm-going-once/#comments
It is still unsold by Sotheby’s:
http://www.loopnet.com/xNet/MainSite/Listing/Profile/Profile.aspx?LID=16447981
Home sales down 33%, senior lunch prices up 33%. See Chapter 3 in the Senior Center saga at:
http://greenwich-gossip.blogspot.com/
Whoa NELLIE! Sounds like you’re suggesting that various government “stimulus” ideas are, at best, completely worthless! Next you’ll be telling us that we learned the same thing in 1936 when all of Roosevelt’s programs did absolutely nothing to reduce unemployment and, in fact, turned a recession into a 15+ year nightmare Depression!
check this out…http://www.cnbc.com/id/37870056
Nearly 1,300 prison inmates wrongly received more than $9 million in tax credits for homebuyers despite being locked up when they claimed they bought a home, a government investigator reported Wednesday.
The investigator said 241 of the inmates were serving life sentences.
In all, more than 14,100 taxpayers wrongly received at least $26.7 million in tax credits that were meant to boost the nation’s slumping housing markets, said the report by J. Russell George, the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration.
These are new home sales figures and they were expect to drop to 410k from last month’s reported number of 504k. Experts were shocked, as I was, only by missing estimates by such a wide margin. The expected drop was already very big but breaking to new lows again was shocking. And this number is again lower than 81/82 and 91 lows. Don’t get me wrong. I am extremely bearish on housing and especially Greenwich market. Last week existing home sales was disappointing too. The “meet Jesus” moment is ahead. Chris – you’re right in that people will sell houses only if priced right. As I see it – houses are wildly overpriced still.
All that is proven by this “news” is that Keynesian economists ought not be allowed out of their Ivy towers to wreck havoc on the rest of us.
Their economic theories should be taught in grad school but only as a quaint but entirely flawed and debunked theory. One or two class sessions would likely be enough to cover it for most purposes. I suppose a 2 credit seminar might be OK, just to keep its professor adherents employed and off public assistance.
Yeah, but once these guys get out . . .
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/06/23/national/w062920D40.DTL&tsp=1
Now that the incentives have expired if I’m making a bid on a house I’m bidding $8k below asking (at least) because I’m figuring they had the $8k added to the asking price.
I divide my time between two pretty tony zip codes. I see multi-million dollar homes sit unsold for a year+. I see smaller homes go before the for sale sign is posted but what I see more than anything is new construction. I guess that says good land will never lose its value so if you have the $, why not have what you want where you want it.
You can always fix a house, but you can never improve its location.
Fannie to cock-block strategic defaulters for seven years.
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/06/fannie-mae-cracks-down-on-walk-aways.html
That should help those home sales numbers going forward. Not that I condone re-lending to dead beats, but it seems OK for corps like Morgan Stanley to do it, just not the average Joe.