Forecast for the 2008 Housing market

The Wednesday, January 2, 2008 Christian Science Monitor had a front page article "Home prices: Where's bottom?" There were a few nuggets of information that I wanted to pass along to you including the National Association of Realtors data that said America's median home price is now $210,200, down 3.3 percent from a year ago but 7.6 percent above its 2004 level. In the last 3 months sales volume and prices for existing home sales, not new construction, were fairly stable. The current for-sale market has a 10 month supply of previously owned homes and a nine-month supply of newly built homes. An area of concern is that there is a higher foreclosure rate than in past housing downturns. Obviously a higher foreclosure rate could push prices down faster because a foreclosed home most often sells for a much lower price than a home sold with a Realtor. For a full report see Mark Trumbull's article at http://www.csmonitor.com/