CNNMoney Spins June's New Home Sales Numbers to Sound Positive
If you were reading the headlines today on the CNNMoney website you may think that the new construction housing market has made a complete rebound. The article I am mentioning has a headline that reads "New home sales rebound 24%"
This is great news right? Well, yes it is great news but if you continue to read it also states that the new home sales in June represent the second worst month since the numbers have been tracked, dating back to 1963. While 24% is a huge increase, you must understand how bad the month of May was to understand that this 24% increase may not be as large as you think.
As I blogged in an earlier post, our office sales numbers in May 2010 were the lowest they had been through the entire housing crisis. These extremely low numbers were caused by the wave of first time home buyers taking advantage of a tax credit that expired at the end of April 2010 (April yeilded the highest level of sales since early 2007). Everybody knew the numbers were going to dive, but everybody had hoped the numbers would hold stronger than they did.
It's a tough market for sellers who bought their house as an investment. It's tough for buyers who want to take advantage of this market but have weak credit. It's tough for real estate agents who have been use to skating through the job and always having friends and family that were interested in buying/selling real estate.
I remember when I started in real estate in 2007. Our leaders were telling us that the market would fall but would return within a year or so. Well, its been three years and there is still a lot of doubt and skepticism about the nations real estate market. At the time I felt unlucky about entering the business in a diving market. Now I understand that this has made me a better agent and now I know that we as agents must adapt to what is happening in our markets. The real estate agents that are complaining the most in this market are the ones that continue to implement the same marketing and networking strategies that were popular in the late 1990's.
