Home Sales Down 8.4% Could Be At Bottom
Sales of existing homes slid 8.4% last year, the steepest fall in 17 years, but the market probably hit bottom in September and is entering a slow recovery that will last until June, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. One sign the market could revive this year is that the median home price, which had fallen for four months, was unchanged at $222,000 in December and was up 1.1% for all of 2006. And though it's still a buyer's market in most of the USA, the 7.3 month glut of homes for sale in November shrank to 6.8 months. "It looks like we are on the bottom, and we will be scraping the bottom as we move along," said David Lereah, the NAR's chief economist. "The worst is over for existing home sales, but I'm still troubled about new homes." The Commerce Department will release new home sales today. Those sales are expected to be down 17% for 2006 and to fall a further 9.7% this year, Lereah says. Not everyone is ready to herald the