House Sales Worst In History

In 2007, new home sales suffered their worst yearly decline in history, reported the Commerce Department today. December sales registered an annual rate of 604,000 in the last month of 2007, down from 634,000 in November, thus bringing the total new home sales number for 2007 to 774,000. That’s a 26% drop from 2006’s 1.05 million new homes sold… the biggest annual drop since the government began tracking new home sales in 1963. The median price of such homes also fell by a massive margin… down over 10% from 2006, from $244,700 to $219,200. So let’s take a second to absorb all of 2007’s housing data… The NAR reported the first ever annual decline in the average existing home prices, along with the largest fall in the pace of existing home sales in 27 years. Then the Census Bureau told us housing starts posted their biggest decline in 27 years. Now this, from the Commerce Dept: the worst year for new home sales on record.
Yikes…