November Previously Owned Home Sales

Posted on by Forest in Investing, Saving Money & Finances

November Previously Owned Home Sales – The housing market has been a little more than flat this year for obvious reasons but it seems that for November we are seeing another increase, the third in four months. Good news but it isn’t all rosy!

November Previously Owned Home Sales

According to an AP article that I read in Gazette.com (but also published everywhere else as usual) more previously owned homes were purchased in November making the seasonally adjusted annual rate at about 4.68 million. Still this is the worst since 1997 and it could be a few more years before sales climb back up to the 6 million norm.

November’s median home price was just $170,600, it’s a buyers market right now but due to the banks attitudes it’s harder to borrow. Home prices are low and they may well drop further with more foreclosures coming onto the market (see our article How To Buy A Foreclosure) and a large stock of normal unsold homes hanging around.

November Previously Owned Home Sales, My Thoughts…

I know all this spells bad stuff for the economy, a rise in sales but a flat year but I think people need to start stepping away from the dream of owning property and stretching their finances to do so. Rental is often touted as a way to throw away money but at least you have a fixed expense and even though the money isn’t going to investments it’s not something that can suddenly die on you and drop to the ground like many peoples home values did. A lot of people are out there right now desperately selling homes for much less than what they purchased and doing so to try and reap some profits due to job loss and other economic factors due to the recession.

If you have the cash property is great but I don’t think high dollar amount loans is the right way to buy one. Outright purchases are obviously best and allow you to deal with less of a rise over the years than trying to deal with rising above the cost of what you have paid towards a mortgage.

Let’s hope that home sales do continue to rise but that mortgage borrowing drops.