Bellevue Real Estate, Mortgage, and Economy 12/27/2010
Posted on 27 December 2010
Here is the Bellevue Real Estate Report for December 27, 2010:
INFO THAT HITS US WHERE WE LIVE…Housing was more affordable in November than at any time in the last 40 years. So it should come as no surprise that Existing Home Sales were UP 5.6% for November, bringing them to an annual rate of 4.68 million, a tad above the expected 4.65 million rate. Sales were up for single-family homes, although down for condos and coops, and all regions of the country registered gains.
The median price increased to $170,600 in November (not seasonally adjusted) and that figure is UP 0.4% over a year ago. The FHFA index of prices for homes bought with conforming mortgages also was up 0.7% in October (seasonally-adjusted), its first gain since May. The months’ supply dipped to 9.5, with a decline in overall inventories.
Thursday saw new single-family home sales UP 5.5% for November, to a 290,000 annual rate, a little short of expectations. The months’ supply of new homes dropped to 8.2 from October’s 8.8 level. The new homes inventory is now down to 197,000, 65.6% off its 2006 peak, and the lowest inventory level going back to 1968. The median selling price went up to $213,000, after dipping under $200,000 in October.
MAKE THAT FOUR IN A ROW… Not everyone got an early start on the holiday break last week, as enough enthusiastic investors showed up on Wall Street to push stocks higher for the fourth week running. There were plenty of economic reports for traders to react to and the news was fundamentally positive.
The main negative note was struck with November Durable Goods Orders, which declined 1.3%, a bigger drop than expected. But that was the overall number. When you took out the volatile transportation component, orders were UP 2.4% and that was well above the gain that had been forecast. The final number for Q3 GDP was revised up from 2.5% to a 2.6% annual rate, but this was a tad less than expected. Nonetheless, the economy is expanding and the feared “double dip” recession is no longer a concern for economists.
In other good news, Personal Income was UP 0.3% in November and Personal Spending UP 0.4%. Looking at inflation, PCE prices were up only 0.1% for the month and up just 1.0% from a year ago. Core PCE prices, excluding food and energy, were up only 0.1% for the month and up just 0.8% from a year ago. This puts zero pressure on the Fed to raise the Funds Rate to head off inflation. Both initial weekly jobless claims and continuing claims dropped again, though still not to the levels they should be.
For the week, the Dow was UP 0.7%, to 11,573; the S&P 500 was UP 1.0%, to 1,257; and the Nasdaq was UP 0.9%, to 2,666. (Note: we’ve dropped the decimals and rounded the indexes to their nearest whole numbers.)
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