RSS Feed by Calculated Risk on 10/25/2010 08:16:00 PM
Monday, October 25, 2010
WSJ Survey: Housing Inventories up in 19 of 28 Markets Year-over-Year
From Nick Timiraos at the WSJ: Housing Gloom Deepens
The growing pessimism is attributed partly to rising inventory in many markets ... The Wall Street Journal's latest quarterly survey ... in 28 major metropolitan areas found inventories of unsold homes were up in 19 markets ... compared with a year ago ...I highlighted the 8.9% year-over-year inventory increase in the NAR report - a strong indicator of more house price declines to come, especially with the already high level of supply.
"We'll see some additional price declines," said David Berson, chief economist at PMI Group Inc ... "The gains we've seen can't be sustained given the current supply situation."
This survey from the WSJ shows that the inventory increases are fairly widespread. And that suggests that price declines will probably be widespread too. This morning CoreLogic noted that house prices declined in 78 out of the largest 100 metropolitan areas in their August report.
Tomorrow Case-Shiller will report on August house prices, and the expectations are for a slight decline in prices - and it will be interesting to see how many of the 20 Case-Shiller cities are showing price declines.
