NOTE FROM SEAN: In May, I felt the sting of the tax credit ending. My listing had fewer viewing than any other month in my career! It was pretty bad! Today, I woke to this article confirming what I already suspected...
This is not an excuse, I am aggressive and searching for new methods to promote my clients homes but a realistic view is also very important. You need to knwo what you are up against.
New-home sales suffer record plunge
Sales in May fell to their lowest level in 47 years after the homebuyer tax credit expired in April.
Posted by Elizabeth Strott on Wednesday, June 23, 2010 10:53 AM
The housing market took another hit today.
New-home sales tumbled by a record 33% in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 300,000, the Commerce Department said this morning. It was the lowest level since 1963, when the government started compiling data.
Sales were down 18.3% from last May.
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While economists had expected the expiration of the government's first-time-homebuyer tax credit at the end of April to hit sales last month, their estimate was for only a 20% decline. The government's tax incentive offered up to $8,000 for homebuyers.
Sales fell in all four U.S. regions last month, led by a record 53% plunge in the West.
"We see no chance of a quick, sustained recovery, though we are hopeful there is little further downside," Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a note to clients. "The next few months are likely to be very grim."
May's decline came after strong gains in March and April because of the tax credit. March sales rose 12.1% to 389,000, and April sales rose 14.7% to 446,000, revised down from an originally reported 14.8% to 504,000.
The median sale price in May was $200,900, down 9.6% from a year earlier and the lowest since December 2003.
The inventory of unsold homes at the current sales rate jumped to an 8.5-month supply, up from 5.8 months in April and the highest in nearly a year. But the number of new homes on the market was 213,000 at the end of May, the fewest since 1970.
On Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors said existing-home sales unexpectedly fell 2.2% in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.66 million.