Doom And Gloom Begin To Descend On Housing

Investment Research Dynamics

“Luxury Home Sellers Are Cutting Prices All Around Chicago” (article link)

This is consistent with what I’m seeing all around the metro Denver area – both visually and using Zillow and searching by zip code.  A literal avalanche of homes in higher end areas are hitting the market.  In the words of a colleague:  ” The Zillow map of Castle Pines has so many red “for sale” marks on it that it looks like a bloody war zone.”

The Pending Home Sale index for existing homes as compiled by the National Association of Realtors was released Monday.  It showed an unexpected drop of 1.1% vs. May and it was down 7.3% vs. last June.  What’s shocking about the May to June comparison is that June is supposed to be the strongest month of the year for home sales.

You can read the details of the data and my assessment here:  June Pending Home Sales.

If you want to know what the problem with the market is, besides the fact that it was trillions in Fed and Government (taxpayer) stimulus that created the dead-cat bounce which occurred after the big housing bubble collapsed, here’s two graphics that explain most of the problem over and above the artificial stimulus:

(source:  NY Times, edit in red is mine)

(source:  Zerohedge, Bloomberg)