Houston's Rate Sheet

Is the Boom over?

Yesterday, the National Association of Realtors released their existing home sales report. It reports that existing home sales fell a seasonally adjusted 5.7 percent in December. The Southern Region (of which Houston is a member) dropped off 7.2 percent, the biggest drop of any other region. The biggest category decline occurred in the Single Family home sector, which dropped 6.8 percent. This could mean that speculation in the condo market continues (sales increased 1.6 percent), but the average family is starting to pull back.

Does this report mean the boom is over? Well, NAR's Chief Economist David Lereah predicted in a separate report that home sales would fall off about 5 percent. This would be a little disconcerting if the NAR wasn't so consistently wrong in their predictions. A blogger for the New York Times has taken the NAR's own press releases and compared their predictions to actual year end results (here). I know predicting the future is not an easy proposition, but these guys are terrible. If you asked them to make your Super bowl prediction, they might pick the Texans to win. So if Mr. Lereah is to be believed, we should have another great year.

posted by Vincent Biondillo @ 10:20 AM