Update US Housing Market December 2008
Sales of new single-family houses in December 2008 dropped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 331,000 units, representing a 14.7% decrease below the November figure of 388,000 and 44.8% drop below the December 2007 estimate of 600,000 units sold. The total number of new homes sold in 2008 is estimated at 482,000, representing a 37.8 percent drop below the 2007 figure of 776,000. Housing completions in December 2008 dropped 5.2% below the revised November 2008 estimate of 1,071,000, and 23.6% below the revised December 2007 estimate of 1,329,000. Single-family housing completions in December dropped 13.1% below the November figure of 769,000. An estimated 1,116,600 housing units were completed in 2008, representing a 25.7% drop below the 2007 figure of 1,502,800.
Seasonally adjusted sales of previously owned homes, which account for about 90 percent of the market in the US increased 6.5% in December from previous month according to the National Association of Realtors. According to the same source the index of pending home resales climbed 6.3 percent during the same period. The increase is attributed to the lower interest rates and the considerable drop in housing prices. Despite this, the number of vacant houses in the US reached seventeen million in December 2008 as confiscations of houses from banks surpassed the rate at which they were sold according to Bloomberg. The increase in vacant homes was 6.7% compared to December 2007 when 17,8 million homes were vacant according to the US Census Bureau. The percentage of vacant homes up for sale increased by 2.9% in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared to the previous quarter, reaching the highest level since 1956 when the Census Bureau started collecting these statistics.
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