As of February, 2012
(February is 12th month)

Boca Area Sales Y/Y percentage last 12 months (down is bad, up is good)

Palm Beach County Sales Y/Y percentage last 12 months (down bad, up good)

South East Florida Sales Y/Y percentage last 12 months (down bad, up good)

January 23, 2012: for the past 4 years, existing home sales in SE Florida have risen. They jumped from 38,303 in 2007 to 69,665 at the end of 2011. Lower prices drove this 82% growth. A serious reversal now appears in the charts. click here

The Southeast Florida drop in existing home sales (by Realtors®) from 69,665 to 48,997 remains preliminary. A few good months could change it quite a bit. Still, it forebodes a serious sales collapse in the market if nothing improves.

Congress and the Executive Branch will stick their fingers into the problem, but current, publicized solutions might make it worse. Selling foreclosures en masse to investors (the most popular suggestion so far) would create “renter nation” … rental pools are the primary reason deep-pocket investors would get involved. That would put pressure on rental prices. Lower rental prices would persuade increasing numbers of potential home buyers to put off buying.

The home sales number may drop back to 2008 levels (miserable). Home prices will continue lower. Underwater mortgages will grow. The housing recovery which I suggested was in place on September 9th of last year ... will shrivel up and die.

The government can always change the rules, of course. The grand experiment of borrowing our way out of bad times has made almost anything possible at the Federal level. They might buy up all the foreclosures themselves, rather than dumping more money on the banks.

Put poverty-level folks in homes of their own, with minimal payments, and lots of social issues start to fix themselves. Or not. Sigmund Freud was fond of saying that crowds always regress to their lowest level of intelligence, morality, ethics and behavior. History remains on his side.

The problem seems almost hopeless. Of course, housing will recover. Some day. It always has. Ever since someone traded their first cave for an upgraded model with running water dripping from the cavern walls. It might take a while, however.

A further collapse in housing will be a serious and continuing drag on the American economy (but not necessarily its stock market). Housing problems will widen the economic gaps of our society further. Which means ... dangerous times ahead. Be careful.

 

Temple