MarketWatch: No time to buy a house

[marmar]

MARKETWATCH FIRST TAKE
Safety on the sidelines
Commentary: You don't buy a house in uncertain times

By MarketWatch


CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- You can't be upbeat about home sales during these economic times.

The purchase of a house is the ultimate confidence indicator, and if there's anyone out there with any confidence these days after what the markets and the financial sector have been through, then you're talking about the true eternal optimist. Listen to audio interview.

August existing-home sales dropped a little more than 2%, the National Association of Realtors reported Wednesday, and overall sales are down more than 10% from a year ago.

August sales, though, represent the closing on houses on which a purchase contract had already been signed, meaning the actual decision to buy those houses was made in May or June, before economic events started spinning out of control with the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the plan for a $700 billion rescue of foundering financial corporations.

As if those monumental items weren't enough to give potential home buyers the jitters, factor in a deteriorating job market -- the economy has lost jobs for the last eight months and unemployment has risen near a five-year high -- and house prices that continue to fall in many parts of the country and you understand why the housing market looks like a sunken soufflé.

In that light, you might look at the 4.91 million annual pace of existing-home sales and marvel at how high it is. And you could take heart in the 7% decline in inventory of homes on the market that the Realtors reported for August since that inventory overhang -- how at 10.4 months of supply given the current sales pace, when five or six months supply represents a market in balance -- is what is putting downward pressure on prices. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/you-dont-buy-house-uncertain/story.aspx?guid=%7B85E6AF56%2DAF5F%2D4897%2DA6AC%2DD05B849466D9%7D

[Gin]

1. but Trump just said on CNN it's a great time...banks are willing to lend...

real estate is a great investment...because he just bought a casino for a lot less than it was worth.

[DCKit]

2. Too bad there's such a shortage of casinoes.

No matter how bad the economy gets, people always gamble and drink.

Maybe there's a whorehouse for sale somewhere....

[spinbaby]

3. Even Las Vegas is having a hard time

And they're usually pretty recession proof.

[DCKit]

5. Location, location, location.

Vegas is just too damn far from anything else.

If so many of the Republicons weren't leaving DC in a few months, I'd open a "petting zoo" with farm animals. Ka-Ching!!!!

[Selatius]

4. If you want to buy a house, you should wait until your market hits bottom before taking a mortgage.

You do not want to be inverted where your mortgage is actually bigger than the market value of your house because you took a mortgage before housing prices stopped falling.