Existing Home Sales Slide 5.7%
A: Existing Home Sales slide 5.7% in December to 6.6 million units annual rate, but set record for ALL of 2005.
Sales of existing homes set another record for the year of 2005 even though the year ended with 3 consecutive months of declines. As a lagging indicator of the US housing markets, this is just another sign that the red-hot housing market has been cooling. However this is the 5th consecutive year of setting an annual record of homes sold; could 2006 be the spoiler (I think so!)?
NAR reports that sales of previously owned homes and condiminiums dropped by 5.7% compared to the sales rate of November. Total sales for 2005 climbed to a record 7.072 million units, up 4.2% from 6.784 million units sold in 2004.
Even more reason why we need a BUYER CONFIDENCE INDEX to assess the state of buyers in local markets so that we can have a more real-time indicator of where housing is headed!
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