New home sales in WSJ

For the blogger party/dinner this Sunday e-mail wannabuy3@gmail.com or see the previous thread. :)

You've probably heard about the low sales of new homes. The WSJ provides a little more information:


About 68,000 homes were sold last month, down from 74,000 in July, the government said. At the end of August, 531,000 homes were on the market -- and only about a third of them were finished. That means builders could be stuck with large inventories as the market weakens further.

"This is staggering," said Joseph Brusuelas, chief U.S. economist at IDEAglobal, a research firm that advises investors. Further big price declines, he said, are "going to be debilitating."

Only about 6,000 new homes priced at $500,000 or more were sold in August, down from 9,000 in each of the previous three months and 11,000 in August 2006.

WSJ Article

What struck me was the strong drop in home sales above $500k. I would like to know how sales at higher brackets are doing. Does anyone have such information? Its interesting enough to see August, a strong sales month, weaker than July. I'm curious to see September sales. This credit crunch is definitely taking on a life of its own.

I still haven't heard a single proposal on how the commercial paper market will be saved. That's about $400B worth of paper that is looking for a home within 60 days. Oh... I have no doubt they'll be able to partially dodge the bullet... but not fully. Those pier loans are weighing down the I-banks a wee bit, so the normal relief channels are constrained.

Got popcorn?
Neil