Homes Sales Have Reached All Time Low
New Home sales have dropped and are lower now than they have been in 16 years. There was hope that the beginning of Spring would bring more sales and would give home owners and potential home owners the chance to start over. Yet, it seemed that things just got worse and there is no silver lining.
The median price of a new home in March, compared with a year ago, fell by the largest amount in nearly four decades. The Commerce Department reported Thursday that sales of new homes dropped by 8.5 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 526,000 units, the slowest sales pace since October 1991. The median price of a home sold in March dropped by 13.3 percent compared with March 2007, the biggest year-over-year price decline since a 14.6 percent plunge in July 1970.
The dismal news on new home sales followed earlier reports showing sales of existing homes fell by 2 percent in March. Housing, which boomed for five years, has been in a prolonged slump for the past two years with sales and home prices falling at especially sharp rates in formerly boom areas of the country. For March, sales were down in all regions of the country, dropping the most in the Northeast, a decline of 19.4 percent. Sales fell by 12.9 percent in the West, 12.5 percent in the Midwest and 4.6 percent in the South.