Towards the end of 2009 there were reports suggesting the housing marketing was improving. However, as this new article from NPR.org points out, new statistics are suggesting a weakening real estate market once again. Listed below are their top three signs that the housing market is getting weaker.
1. Sales of previously-owned homes fell by 2.2 percent in May, the National Association of Realtors said today. Economists were predicting that sales would rise, driven by the tail end of the homebuyer tax credit.
2. Home builders' confidence in the housing market fell this month, according to a monthly survey of the industry.
3. Home prices have been falling this year, according to the Case-Shiller index.
To qualify for the home-buyer tax credit, people had to sign a contract by April 30 and close by June 30. Programs like this often encourage people who are planning to buy a home to hurry up and do it before the program ends. In that way, they sometimes steal home-buyers from future months.
In a note this morning, Ian Shepherdson of High Frequency Economics argued that this phenomenon will lead to more weakness in the housing market in the coming months.
