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Betreff des ThemasU.S. September Home Resales Jump 5.5% to 5.18 Million Pace
URL des Themashttps://aktien-portal.at/forum/../forum/boerse-aktien.php?az=show_topic&forum=124&topic_id=59260&mesg_id=59580
59580, U.S. September Home Resales Jump 5.5% to 5.18 Million Pace
Eingetragen von Finanzer, 24.10.08 16:04
U.S. September Home Resales Jump 5.5% to 5.18 Million Pace

Home resales in the U.S. rose more
than forecast in September, aided by foreclosure-driven declines
in prices that made properties more affordable.
Purchases of existing homes jumped 5.5 percent last month to
a 5.18 million annual pace, the highest level in a year, the
National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. The
median price dropped 9 percent.
The boost to sales from lower prices may be short lived as
banks withhold financing on mounting concern that record
foreclosures will hurt profits and depress values even more. The
collapse in lending signals the housing recession will extend
well into a fourth year.
``Buyers are having trouble getting financing,'' Terrin
Griffiths, an economist at the California Credit Union League in
Rancho Cucamonga, California, said before the report. ``The
economy is showing increasing signs of weakness and the housing
market continues to struggle.''
Resales were forecast to rise to a 4.95 million annual rate
from a 4.91 million pace in August, according to the median
estimate of 66 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Projections
ranged from 4.7 million to 5.11 million.
Sales rose 1.4 percent compared with a year earlier, the
first year-over-year increase since November 2005. Resales
totaled 5.65 million in 2007.
Today's figures compare with the 4.86 million level reached
in June, the lowest in a decade and 33 percent down from the
record reached in September 2005.

Inventory

The number of previously owned unsold homes on the market at
the end of September represented 9.9 months' worth at the current
sales pace, the fewest since February and down from 10.6 months'
at the end of the prior month.
The median price of an existing home dropped from a year ago
to $191,600, the lowest since April 2004. Falling home prices
make it harder to refinance mortgages, pushing up foreclosures in
the third quarter to the highest since record-keeping began in
2005, according to Realtytrac.com.
Resales account for about 90 percent of the market, while
purchases of new homes make up the rest. Sales of existing homes
are compiled from contract closings and may reflect contracts
signed one or two months earlier.
Today's report showed resales of single-family homes climbed
6.2 percent to an annual rate of 4.62 million. Sales of condos
and co-ops were unchanged at a 560,000 rate.
Purchases increased in three of four regions, led by a 17
percent surge in the West as distressed sales jumped in
California and Nevada. In the Northeast, sales fell 1.2 percent.

Distressed Sales

Foreclosure-related sales accounted for 35 percent to 40
percent of last month's total, the agents' group said. Of those,
about 80 percent were for primary residence, higher than the
average of about 75 percent and signaling that investors are not
a primary reason for the jump, said Lawrence Yun, the group's
chief economist.
Declines in home equity have undermined consumer spending as
owners have less cash to tap. A cascade of bank losses and
failures has led to the most severe financial crisis in seven
decades. Most economists are forecasting a recession in the U.S.
and a global slowdown.
As home sales shrank, builders scaled back construction
projects by 64 percent through September from a peak in January
2006, the biggest decline since at least 1959. Work began last
month on the fewest single-family homes in 26 years, the Commerce
Department reported last week. The number of building permits
issued also fell, a sign that declines in construction will
continue to hurt the economy.

No Bottom

``The housing downswing is really not exactly even nearing a
bottom at this point,'' David Seiders, chief economist at the
National Association of Homebuilders said Oct. 17 in an interview
with Bloomberg Television. ``The core problem in the economy is
still housing, and house prices are decimating the financial
markets.''
Construction companies continue to struggle. Pulte Homes
Inc., the third-largest U.S. builder, this week reported a net
loss of $280.4 billion for the third quarter, more than double
what analysts had projected.
``A bottom in the housing market may not come for some
time,'' Chief Executive Officer Richard Dugas said on a
conference call yesterday.
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