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U.S. New Home Sales Hit 6 Year High in May

Discussion in 'News & Current Events' started by InTheLight, Jun 27, 2014.

  1. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    (Reuters) - Sales of new U.S. single-family homes jumped to a six-year high in May, the latest indication the housing market was starting to dig out of a recent soft patch.

    The Commerce Department said on Tuesday sales surged 18.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 504,000 units. That was the highest level since May 2008, while the increase was the biggest since January 1992.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/24/usa-economy-housing-idUSL2N0P40ZA20140624
     
  2. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    In other news 40,000,000 cannot afford the homes they are either buying or renting.
     
  3. webdog

    webdog Active Member
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    This isn't saying much of anything. Since the bottom fell out 7 years ago new housing has stalled. What is not taken into this are the short sales of these new homes, houses built during the recession that are just now selling, etc. Stats like this are like putting lipstick on a pig.
     
  4. thisnumbersdisconnected

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    You're trying to play in my ballpark, ITL, and you don't know the ground rules.

    Yeah, permits are up across the country. But they aren't near the level they were in 2008. And builders face a variety of economic problems on the horizon.

    New mortgage rules impact lenders and borrowers.
    Jobs aren't growing like you and others have claimed.
    Lack of new jobs means lack of new home starts in the next few months.
    We can't keep home prices down when our suppliers are increasing material and labor costs.

    The overall builder confidence index nationwide is about 50. That's OK. It ain't great. To indicate a full home building recovery trend, it needs to be above 60. It hasn't been there since October 2008. If I didn't have four contracts, I'd quit building completely. The ministry takes care of itself. I don't need to do it anymore, and I've got the money both for our retirement and for the remainder of my schooling.

    Many builders I know who build a lot more than I do and who depend on it for their sole income are beside themselves. It can't keep going this direction and not tank again.
     
  5. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    Almost nothing is as it was in 2008. The point is that things are improving. It's not a mirage. It's a fact that new home building permits are at a 6 year high. Why not embrace the good news instead of looking for a down side?

    Oh, that's right. The LMD has got your goad.
     
  6. thisnumbersdisconnected

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    Newflash: It will never be that good again. There is nothing to be confident about among builders, realtors or buyers.
    A market supported by artificially low interest rates sponsored by Freddie and Fannie is nothing but a mirage. It's another bubble, and it will burst more furiously and disastrously than the last one.
    Because it's my money involved in keeping the business afloat, and I have to be practical. If I stay in too long, I will wind up with product in the ground and no one to buy it. The trick is to see the market trend -- not the short-term, which is what you're looking at, but the long haul. I have to know when to cut back or get out completely. At my age, the next move is "get out completely." I'm good now. So are a lot of other builders. But we're smart enough to know it can't last. It won't last.
     
  7. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    Millennial-Driven Housing Boom Coming
    http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/26/real_estate/harvard-millennials-housing/
     
  8. thisnumbersdisconnected

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    Nothing in that article is believable, from the standpoint of the home builder. Or anyone else, for that matter. It discusses how Millennials have dropped out of the housing market in droves over the last nine years, and then claims the "coming job recovery" will put them back in the market.

    Where's the proof jobs are recovering? There is none. Regardless of what you want to believe from your other sources. Nothing is going to restore the jobs we've lost under Obama.

    Also, the age of multiple part-time jobs, communal/cooperative living and other alternatives to individual home ownership are upon us, and nothing is going to change that. Consider what the National Assocation of Home Builders is urging us to consider as our "new customer":
    • A retiree that is downsizing. Not unusual, but there are millions more of them than ever before, and the day of the 4,000 square foot house is over.
    • An adult child over 40 who is aware that his/her parents may need to move in with them someday soon. Not new, either, but again, there are far more of them than there used to be.
    • A Baby Boomer that is a planner, and wants to consider an in-home caretaker in the future.
    • A late career buyer who wants to be sure their next house allows them to “Age in Place” and avoid assisted living and nursing homes for as long as possible.
    • An able bodied buyer who is thinking about “visit-ability” to their home by their own friends and family members.
    Housing will look different for the next 20-30 years than it ever has before. Small, cheaper, more energy efficient homes that no one moves out of. No "stepping upscale" after three or four years, as in the past. The buyer is looking for a home to keep for the rest of his/her life. Considering 60% of new home builds are for customers who have built before, this represents a severe downsizing for the next generation, at the very least.

    Like I said, ITL, you and your sources don't understand the market. You're not looking at from the perspective of someone who has to survive in it.
     
  9. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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  10. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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  11. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    "Cluster Of Central Banks" Have Secretly Invested $29 Trillion In The Market

    Another conspiracy "theory" becomes conspiracy "fact" as The FT reports "a cluster of central banking investors has become major players on world equity markets." The report, to be published this week by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), confirms $29.1tn in market investments, held by 400 public sector institutions in 162 countries, which "could potentially contribute to overheated asset prices." China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange has become “the world’s largest public sector holder of equities”, according to officials, and we suspect the Fed is close behind (courtesy of more levered positions at Citadel), as the world's banks try to diversify themselves and "counters the monopoly power of the dollar." Which leaves us wondering where are the central bank 13Fs?

    While most have assumed that this is likely, the recent exuberance in stocks has largely been laid at the foot of another irrational un-economic actor - the corporate buyback machine. However, as The FT reports, what we have speculated as fact for many years now (given the death cross of irrationality, plunging volumes, lack of engagement, and of course dwindling credibility of central planners)... is now fact...

    < snip >

    So there it is... conspiracy fact - Central Banks around the world are buying stocks in increasing size.

    To summarize, the global equity market is now one massive Ponzi scheme in which the dumb money are central banks themselves, the same banks who inject the liquidity to begin with.

    That would explain this.

    Continue . . . http://www.alt-market.com/articles/2188-qcluster-of-central-banksq-have-secretly-invested-29-trillion-in-the-market
     
    #11 poncho, Jun 27, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 27, 2014
  12. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    "That's off topic." -- Some Internet Guy, 1998
     
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