– Existing Home Sales Plunge (and Don’t Blame The Weather) (ZeroHedge, Feb 23, 2015):
With homebuilder sentiment slipping,blamed on the weather (despite improvement in the Northeast), Architecture billings down, and lumber prices down, it should not be totally surprising that existing home sales collapsed in January (-4.9% against expectations of -1.8% to a worse than expected 4.82 million SAAR). This is the lowest existing home sales since April. Oh – and before the talking heads blame the weather – the biggest drop in home sales was in The West (with its warm, dry, sunny home-buying climate). Considering that existing home sales most recent peak in 2014 failed to take out the previous government-sponsored peak in 2013 and remains 30% or more below the 2005 peak, and claims that the housing recovery is in tact are greatly exaggerated.
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While they keep rates low for greedy gut bankers, mortgage rates continue to climb……some of the ARM jumbos (loans bigger than $650K, a low price just a few years back) are over 6% and climbing. 30 year fixed are well over 4% if you have no black marks at all……it goes up very quickly if the buyer ever had a problem.
Most mortgages in the US are ARMs, sold to fool buyers enticed by the low rates under Greenspan….people are having their mortgages triple in a month…..I know some of them, and that will drive us farther south. There is no growth, save in a few pockets of prosperity……it is really bad news for everybody.
Why nobody addresses this obvious problem is typical of the mindless fools running this nation downhill at record rates. Instead, the false markets continue to climb on Yellen’s comments…….the markets do not reflect the real economy at all.