CFAH

The pace of existing U.S. home sales “climbed 6.8 percent [from February] to a 5.35 million annual rate” in March, the first increase in four months (think and thank both seasonality and tax credits).
Once again, 5.16 million previously owned homes sold in 2009 (4.91 million in 2008).
Tax Credit Helping Drive Sales of Existing Houses [Bloomberg]
Existing U.S. Home Sales Struggling To Find A Second Wind [SocketSite]

Comments from Plugged-In Readers

  1. Posted by SFRE

    Its the tax credits! [yeah right, not for SF].
    The main driver behind housing is consumer confidence. If the consumer is confident they will buy something (evidenced by increase in activity), or sell at the worst time (last year).
    Perhaps with the potential looming for an Obama VAT tax, people will be more confident in our fearless leader, and that will lead to even more buying.

  2. Posted by zig

    SFRE
    SF is a different animal certainly
    Nationally we had a credit expansion fueled bubble in housing. Real wages have been flat for the average worker for some time. It certainly hasn’t gotten better lately.
    So is the average American house now affordable to the average American worker with new tighter credit?
    I personally doubt it

  3. Posted by Lookielew

    Can’t speak for SF, but this weekend a 4 bdrm. home in Los Altos listed for $1.6 w/a pool and it got ten offers by Wed. No recession down here.

  4. Posted by anon

    Lookielew, are you talking about the place on Arboleda? That’s the only 4BR with pool I can think of in that price range (whether for sale or under contract), although it’s listed for $1.539M.

  5. Posted by lookielew

    No it was on Camellia and I think there were 12 offers and it’s gone 150K over asking.

  6. Posted by anon

    That one was listed for closer to $1.7M ($1.679M). It’ll be interesting to see what the final selling price is, since there hasn’t been a lot going for significantly over asking except a place on Eva (http://www.julianalee.com/reinfo/sold-LA.htm), which may have been underpriced on purpose. The lot for the place on Camellia is a little bigger than a standard-sized lot in the area — 13K vs. 10-11K.

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