October Home Sales Increase Over 10%

According to an Associate Press article, home sales rose 10.1% nationally in one month, from September of this year to October, and up nearly 36% since things hit bottom in January.  The article gives the bulk of the credit for such a climb to the approaching expiration of the $8,000 tax credit offered by the federal government.  Additional props are given to lower home prices and other federal programs to lower mortgage rates.  During the month of October, some areas of the country reported bidding wars on properties.

Now that the Senate has voted to extend and expand the tax credit to the middle of next year, we should see even more improvement in the housing market.  Some concern was expressed in the article regarding the increase in unemployment and the number of homeowners falling behind on their mortgages.  They discussed this, combined with the eventual end of the tax credit, will have some negative impact on the housing market, but there is a debate as to how much damage that will do.

Another article published in the Salt Lake Tribune reports the statistic that Utah’s home sales have increased 23% from the same time last year.  The number of homes sold across the nation in October approached the astronomical levels we saw in February 2007 when the housing market saw the highest number of home sales ever.

I’m excited about these reports.  They indicate that now is the time to buy or invest in real estate.  Interest rates are low.  Values are still low.  Even though the number of sales has increased, home prices have not risen comparably… yet.  In a typical real estate cycle, an increase in sales is followed by an increase in prices.  So, I expect to see values start to climb again in the near future.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 9:46 am and is filed under Market Conditions, Selling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.