Thursday, December 20, 2007

Housing Market Troubles Under-Reported? Nah..........


“The collapse of the housing market is worse than it looks,” Interesting story in the WSJ today about how sellers are offering bigger incentives to buyers. These incentives don't show up as part of the public record, which records housing transactions. But they can be substantial.
“What's happening is something like this: Someone sells a house for $200,000, but gives $20,000 in incentives. For purposes of tracking housing prices, $200,000 is the sale. In reality, of course, the true net price is only $180,000.
“This practice fools all the data-gathering services. Bottom line: Housing prices are falling more than reported.”

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