Home Sales

The Next U.S. Housing Crisis Has Arrived: Existing Home Sales Post Their Biggest Decline In 4 Years

Things just continue to get even worse for the U.S. housing industry.  New homes sales have been absolutely plummeting, homebuilder stocks have lost over a third of their value, and existing home sales just posted their biggest decline since 2014.  For years, we had been witnessing a real estate boom in the United States, but now that has officially ended.  It is starting to feel like 2008 all over again, and many of those that work in the industry are really starting to freak out.  The Federal Reserve has been aggressively raising interest rates, and it is having the exact same effect on the housing industry that it did just before the last recession. (Read More...)

Housing Crash?: U.S. Existing Home Sales Fall By The Most In Six Years

Home For Sale - Public DomainWe just got more evidence that a major economic slowdown is underway here in the United States.  Existing home sales were down a whopping 7.1 percent during the month of February, and this represented the biggest decline that we have seen in six years.  This is yet another sign that we are in the early stages of a new crisis that is eerily reminiscent of what happened back in 2008.  The truth is that most U.S. consumers are tapped out, and when you are tapped out it is really hard to get a mortgage.  Banks aren’t really fond of lending money to people that can’t pay it back, and in recent years housing prices in many areas have risen to levels that are beyond the reach of most middle class families. (Read More...)

Home Sales Drop Once Again

Existing home sales in the U.S. are down again.  New home sales in the U.S. are down again.  What else is new?  The U.S. housing industry just cannot seem to bounce back.  Mortgage lenders have really, really tightened up lending standards and so now there are a lot fewer qualified buyers than there used to be.  It is as if the big financial institutions have nearly shut off the flow of credit.  But without credit, the vast majority of American families don’t have a prayer of achieving the American Dream of owning a home.  Even with mortgage rates close to record lows the housing market is still languishing.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how low mortgage rates are if American families can’t get home loans approved.  With unemployment still staggeringly high and with incomes still declining, it appears that the U.S. housing market is going to continue to suffer for some time to come. (Read More...)