Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Top Business Story of the Year: "House Party Ended With a Thud"

From the Associated Press (via Yahoo):

The nation's house party ended with a thud in 2006, leaving everyone from condo flippers to Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke waiting to see what would happen next.

The sudden stall in home sales, home construction and home prices -- and what that will mean for the economy -- was voted the top business story of the year by U.S. newspaper and broadcast editors surveyed by The Associated Press.

At the housing market's peak, buyers rushed to open houses, blank checks in hand. Lenders gave big-money mortgages to people who could barely afford their monthly payments. That ended in 2006, when home builders scuttled projects, walked away from land they'd hoped to develop and would-be buyers canceled orders.
...
HOUSING SLIPS: Moody's Economy.com, a private research firm, projected that the median sales price for an existing home will decline in 2007 by 3.6 percent -- the first decline for an entire year in U.S. home prices since the Great Depression. One reason: Speculators fled the market. Not only did they stop buying, they put properties they owned up for sale.
Hat tip: TMTGM

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Was just checking Craigslist tonight, repos are rolling in, I can feel the quake starting...

Anonymous said...

Also check out how many brand new 4br homes for rent are now being listed as section 8 ok.

My other fun thing to do on CL is look under the For Sale and run a search for moving out of state.

Anonymous said...

anon 1:01

can you provide links on the repos?

Anonymous said...

I see realtors listing them already, like sharks in the water...which area of town do you want? I can just provide the RE link and if you just scroll down you'll see Repo, Short Sale, etc. Those are them:
http://sacramento.craigslist.org/rfs/