Orlando Housing Continues to Decline

Just saw an article in the Orlando Sentinel...ouch...

In more bad news for the beleaguered housing industry, sales of new homes fell in January for a third straight month, pushing activity down to the slowest pace in nearly 13 years. The median price of a new home dropped to the lowest level in more than three years.The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that new home sales fell by 2.8 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 588,000 units, the slowest pace since February 1995.The median price of a new home dropped to $216,000 in January, down 4.3 percent from the December median sales price, the point where half the homes sold for more and half for less. That was the lowest median price since September 2004 and underscored that the steep slide in housing is still under way.Analysts believe that housing activity has further to fall as a tidal wave of mortgage foreclosures is dumping more unsold homes on an already glutted market. For January, the inventory of unsold homes dropped but since the pace of sales activity slowed as well, the number of months it would take to exhaust the current inventory rose to 9.9 months, the longest period in more than 26 years.Until this inventory backlog is worked down further, economists are predicting more declines in prices in the months ahead.The 2.8 percent drop in new home sales in January followed even bigger declines of 4 percent in December and 13.1 in November and represented weakness in every part of the country except the West, which saw sales increase by 2.2 percent.Sales fell by 10.3 percent in the Northeast and dropped by 7.6 percent in the Midwest and 2.4 percent in the South.Earlier this week, a real estate trade group reported that sales of existing homes had fallen by 0.4 percent in January, pushing existing home sales down to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.89 million units, the weakest showing on records going back to 1999.Median prices for existing homes dropped to $201,100, down 4.6 percent from a year ago, while the inventory of unsold existing homes rose to 10.3 months' supply, just below the two-decade high of 10.5 months hit in October.Analysts forecast further price declines until the inventory levels are worked down further. However, a rising tide of mortgage foreclosures is pushing even more unsold homes onto the glutted market and financial institutions have tightened lending standards since a credit crisis hit with full force last August, making it harder for prospective buyers to qualify for loans.The weakness in housing has spread to the rest of the economy, raising the prospects the country could fall into a full-blown recession. The country is being battered by the prolonged slump in housing, a serious credit squeeze and soaring energy prices.In another sign of trouble, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday that orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods plunged in January by the largest amount in five months, an indication that manufacturers are being caught in the weakness engulfing the rest of the economy.The 5.3 percent drop in new orders last month reflected declines across a wide swath of industry from commercial aircraft and autos to heavy machinery and computers.A growing number of analysts believe the economy will slip into a recession this quarter although they expect the downturn to be short and mild, thanks to aggressive interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve and a $168 billion economic stimulus package passed by Congress earlier this month. Millions of households will begin seeing rebate checks in May that should give the economy a boost starting this summer.The overall economy skidded to a barely discernible growth rate of 0.6 percent in the final three months of last year and many analysts believe that the gross domestic product may turn negative in the current quarter and the second quarter this year, meeting the classic definition of a recession as consumers, whose confidence levels have plunged to the lowest levels in five years, cut back on spending.The 5.3 percent decline in durable goods for January was the first setback since October and was the biggest decline since a similar 5.3 percent drop last August.The weakness was led by a 13.4 percent decrease in orders for transportation equipment, which reflected a 30.5 percent plunge in demand for commercial aircraft, a very volatile category, and a 0.8 percent fall in demand for motor vehicles and parts. It was the second straight drop in autos and underscored the problems facing domestic automakers as they struggle with weak demand in the face of surging gasoline prices and plunging consumer confidence.The new durable goods report showed that a key indicator of business investment dropped in January by the largest amount in three months. Orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, considered a good proxy for business investment, fell by 1.4 percent last month.

New Home Sales Hit 7 Year Low - Homebuilders Suffer a Down Market

Another article highlighting the current homebuilding market. New Homebuilders are sucking win and paying for their greed, and poor planning. Homebuyers and employees of these builders continue to suffer.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The mortgage bomb hit the demand for new homes even harder than expected in August, leaving the nation's builders with their weakest level of sales since the summer of 2000, when the nation was struggling with a stock market collapse, rising interest rates and a looming recession.

And the government's latest snapshot of the battered housing market, released Thursday, may actually be understating the problem: It does not account for the rising cancellation rates or sales inducements that builders have reported in recent months. New home sales hit a 7-year low in August in the face of problems in the mortgage market.

According to the Census Bureau, new homes sold at an annual pace of 795,000 in August, down 8 percent from the revised 867,000 sales pace in July.It was the slowest pace of sales since June 2000, as legions of buyers had trouble finding mortgages or selling their existing homes. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast that sales would fall to a pace of 825,000.

The report also showed the median price of a new home fell 7.4 percent from year earlier levels to $225,700 in the month, as prices were pressured by both the problems in mortgage finance and the excess supply of homes on the market. The inventory of new homes on the market rose to an 8.2 month supply, as the glut of completed homes without a buyer was near a record high, with 180,000 completed homes listed for sale, just off the record high of 182,000 set in May of this year. The July report wasn't the only month revised lower by the Census Bureau; it also dropped its sales estimates for May and June, leaving sales 34,000 below the previous estimates.

The decline in sales came despite a pickup in sales in the Northeast and Midwest compared to July. But the South, which accounts for nearly half of the nation's new home sales, saw a nearly 15 percent drop from July levels, while sales in the West declined more than 20 percent. Sales in each of the four regions were off more than 10 percent from year-earlier levels, and nationwide the pace of sales is down 21.2 percent from a year ago.

This is just the latest sign of trouble for the housing market. On Tuesday, a report from the National Association of Realtors showed the pace of existing home sales dropped in August for the sixth straight month to their lowest level in five years. And the new home sales report likely did a better job capturing the turmoil in the real estate market in August, as it is based on contracts for new homes signed in the month. The existing home sales figures are based on when a deal is closed, typically a month or two after the contract is signed.

The new home sales report, besides serving as a leading indicator of the overall housing market, is closely followed because of the importance of construction to the overall economy. The home building boom helped support the nation's economic and employment growth during 2003 to 2005. But economists are growing increasingly concerned that the current weakness could become a large enough drag on the economy to help tip the nation into recession. The latest report on gross domestic product, also released Thursday, shows investment in housing subtracted 0.6 percentage points from the nation's overall growth in the second quarter. Still, as weak as the new home sales report is, experts caution it could actually be masking other signs of weakness.

Builders have reported significantly higher cancellation rates for buyers who have signed a contract but then back out of the sale. So demand could be weaker than the report suggests. Also about three quarters of builders surveyed by their trade group report offering incentives, such as paying for closing costs or offering additional features on a new home for free, in order to maintain demand.

So the drop in prices could actually be more severe than the report indicates. The nation's major home builders have been hammered by the downturn in both home sales and prices in the last year. On Thursday, KB Home, the nation's No. 5 home builder, reported a loss in its most recent quarter, compared to a solid profit a year ago, as the company warned it expects conditions to worsen through 2008. Lenar, the nation's No. 1 home builder by revenue, posted a bigger than expected loss Tuesday. In addition, No. 2 homebuilder D.R. Horton and No. 3 Centex both reported losses far bigger than Wall Street had expected, while No. 4 Pulte Homes and No. 6 Hovanian Enterprises both have reported losses for the last two quarters and analysts project losses for at least the next year.