Neotrotsky
Council to Supreme Soviet
He's talking about new homes sales, which are a small percentage of the housing market.
Existing homes sales, which make up the vast majority of the real estate market, are up 7.4%.
Criss--"new homes sales" down 13.7% means that the "construction industry" is still in the tank. In fact, unemployment in one of the largest industries in this country--"construction" is at 19.7%. Until new home sales go up--there will remain millions of unemployed in the construction industry.
Existing home sales are up & they mentioned this on ABC main stream news--because 1st time home buyers are taking advantage of the $8000 dollars they get from the American taxpayer--once those subsidies go away--so do these buyers. Along with this we have banks that can sell these properties for dirt, & or homeowners that end up in what is referred to as a "distressed sale" because they have lost their jobs & can no longer pay the mortgage.
Next--we are due for a very large second round of foreclosurers--this time due to job losses in this country. People originally who actually qualified for a loan--could afford the home & are now unemployed. This will be next years "surprise."
Plus, congress extended the home buying credit months ago to April of next year- still no growth
Which only shows that all we did was expediting of future quarter sales and it has not created any real growth