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