Housing market inches upward
Consumer confidence is on the rise and the housing market is reaping the benefits. The NAR reported that sales of existing homes inched upward 0.6% in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.28 million units. This follows a 0.5% rise in sales in October.
This is good news because it is the first time that there have been two consecutive months of upward movement since the Spring of 2005. Many analysts believe this signals the bottoming out of the housing market and that things should begin to improve.
However, analysts caution that home prices may continue to fall for several more months as sellers find themselves lowering their prices to compete with the surplus of homes currently on the market. Falling home prices though are a good thing as far as David Lereah with the NAR is concerned. He estimates that each 1% fall in home prices brings an additional 50,000 buyers into the market, and that’s a good thing.