Could We See Monthly Weakening and Annual Increase in Sales Price, Units?


Last year we received non-plus existing home sales data. We saw virtually identical data for units sold during November 2015 as we did during November 2014. The upside was that we saw an increase in the average sales price from  253,800 to 263,700. The bad news was that this was not equal to the pre-recession Average Sales Price of $270,000. We see regular trends in the units sold and sales price changes from month to month and year to year. What can we expect when the existing home sales data is released Next Wednesday?


Existing Homes Sales should see a drop in units sold month to month, may see a drop year to year. Last month we saw 444,000 units sold during October for the third straight October. We saw a decrease in units sold during the month of November Starting during November 2005 - at the peak of the market. The annual sale change for November dropped during 2006, 2007 and 2008. We saw a November slide during November 2013, 2014, and no change during November 2015. The month to month drops between October and November have been worsening, as of late. We normally see a drop month to month of 4%-8% between October and November. The past three Novembers we have seen monthly declines of 14%-21%


If we see a drop in Units of 21%, again - We wi1ll see  351,000 units sold, Again. We saw 444,000 units sold during October 2016.  We could see a decline year to year - this would mean that we see a drop month to month of greater than 21%. That would be the worst drop October to November since 1999. If we see a drop of 15% we would see sales of 377,000 units this month. This would not put us back to 2012 levels.We "need" to see sales in excess of 364,000 units to keep pace with last year, which wold be a drop of 18% from last month. We saw a similar drop during 2003.If we want to see sales comparable to 2001 we need 470,000 existing homes to have been sold during November. This would be a level higher than what we saw during 2006. That is not going to happen . Expect a number between 345,000 units and 365,000 units Real estate sales seem to be slowing, and that means that we will probably see lower sales than we saw during 2015.


The Average Sales price should drop from last Month and Improve compared to November 2015. We normally see a drop in sales prices during November. The trend bounces back up during December. The annual sales price change is between 4% and 8%. Last month the Average Sales Price $263,700.  An increase of 4-8% would place use between $274,000 and $285,000.Either would set a record for the month of November.  An increase of 0-2% month to month would yield a value between $274,000 and $279,000. We could see a drop in the average sales price of 0.5% to 1% A 1% drop would bring us to $271,000. Expect a number between $264,000 and $274,000.


The housing market has been improving. The problem is that it has not recovered to pe-recession levels, unless you are talking about the 2001 recession.


It's the economy.



 Reclaiming Common Sense