There were several economic updates on various aspects of the housing market this week. On Wednesday, data on Existing Home Sales was released by the National Association of Realtors. It’s encouraging that sales have seemingly stabilized (shown on the first chart below), but worrisome that prices continue to post big declines. On Thursday, New Home Sales data was released by the Census Bureau. The key take away from that report was that the outstanding inventory of unsold new homes continues to fall (shown on the second chart below), which should help sales and prices to stabilize going forward. While there were some positives found in those reports, on Thursday the Mortgage Bankers Association revealed that mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures rose to record highs during the first quarter. So, a mixed message from the housing market this week, which is actually an improvement from just a few months ago when the information was overwhelmingly negative.
