From the monthly archives:
The new home sales report for January was downright dismal. So how did the existing market fare?
* Existing home sales dropped 7.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.05 million in January. That was well below forecasts for a reading of 5.5 million.
* Regionally, sales were down across the board. They fell 5.2% in [...]
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The latest new home sales figures came out a little while ago. No sugar-coating these numbers. they stink. More details:
* New home sales plunged 11.2% in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 309,000 from an upwardly revised 348,000 in December. That was much worse than the 354,000 figure economists were expecting and below [...]
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The latest S&P/Case-Shiller data on home prices was released this morning. The 20-city index rose 0.3% between November and December, the biggest monthly rise since August. On a year-over-year basis, prices are still down 3.1%. But that’s the smallest decline going all the way back to May 2007. Prices are actually UP from year-ago levels [...]
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The Mortgage Bankers Association just released figures on Q4 2009 home loan performance. What did the numbers show?
* The overall mortgage delinquency rate fell to 9.47% in Q4 2009 from 9.64% in Q3 2009. That’s the first quarter-over-quarter decline in delinquencies since Q1 2007. Of particular note: The percentage of loans 30 days behind on [...]
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Investors are increasingly reluctant to step up and buy long-term Treasuries. The proof is in the results from yesterday’s sale of $25 billion in 10-year notes and today’s sale of $16 billion in 30-year bonds.
Today, the bonds were sold at a yield of 4.72%, versus pre-auction talk of 4.687%. The bid-to-cover ratio was just 2.36, compared [...]
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Pending homes sales figures were just released for December. Here’s what the numbers showed:
* Sales rose 1% between November and December. That was right in line with what economists were expecting.
* At 96.6, the index was up 10.9% from the year-ago level of 87.1.
* By region, pending sales were broadly higher. They climbed 2.2% in [...]
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