Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Ventura County September 2009 Home Sales





Dataquick reported home sales for Ventura County for September 2009 today. Home sales came in at 784, down 3.0% YoY. The median sales prices came in at $371,750 which was down 3.4% YoY. Assuming people lock the month before they close August 2008 rates were 6.48%, August 2009 rates were 5.19%. People need to put todays market in context of the rates being so ultra-low to understand just how bad these numbers really are. The Federal Reserve claims to be winding down their MBS purchases and therefore rates will rise. I have a really hard time seeing how they will do so, can you imagine this market at 6.5% rates?
We are still in a supply constrained market, sales and price movements should be pretty static as long as that is the case. But rates, unemployment , defaults, etc are all building headwinds to the market. I keep thinking it can't stay like this forever but the people who own the printing presses are telling me I am wrong (and they are clearly winning the argument right now).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Right on. Banks passing toxic assets(real estate losses) to the government(FHA, Fannie, Feddie) and prints money to cover the losses. Get ready to use the dollar for toilet paper.