Now that the tax credit has officially expired, what will happen the remainder of the year with home sales? As we expected, April sales for existing homes continued to improve by 12 percent over March and 49 percent over April of 2009. Although we don't expect great things for the remainder of 2010, there are a couple of positive indicators for the new home market. First, most new home communities seem to have figured out "where" the market is in regard to price. "Finding" the market is a big step toward sustainable sales volume. We also have seen new home inventory levels at record setting lows. With resale home supply at 7.8 months this April, we're almost at a balanced level of supply. Another positive sign for Chicago was the addition of 35,000 jobs in April, which lowered our unemployment rate from 11.2 to 10.7, although we do expect this to flatten out in the coming months, job growth is inevitable through 2011.
A couple of new home builders in the area said that sales in April and May have been "up" versus last year. The numbers aren't mind blowing, but positive sales each month over last year show that we are making progress and have begun the slow and steady climb to a recovery.
0 comments:
Post a Comment