Republican administrations negatively affect home sales?

Submitted by bizgrrl on Mon, 2007/06/25 - 2:07pm.

Or is it just Bush Administrations? Coincidental, I'm sure.

The current slump (Ed. note: Bush Jr.) in housing is the worst since the 1989-92 downturn (Ed. note: Bush Sr).

The National Association of Realtors reported Monday that sales of existing single-family homes and condominiums dropped by 0.3 percent to 5.99 million units in May, the slowest sales pace since June of 2003.

The median price of a home sold last month dropped to $223,700, down 2.1 percent from a year ago. It marked the 10th straight price decline compared with a year ago, the longest stretch of weakness on record.

The largest decline in sales is in the South (3.4%). Are Southerners more financially conservative? Or, is the South over built in expectation of Northerners moving south? Or?

( categories: )


R. Neal's picture
Or, people in the South have

Or, people in the South have been the targets of too many "creative mortgage" scams. Once burned, twice shy.

I wonder if Katrina has

I wonder if Katrina has affected the South, although that's coming up on 2 years ago now.

R. Neal's picture
I wonder if Katrina has

I wonder if Katrina has affected the South, although that's coming up on 2 years ago now.

I'm guessing there's something to that.

People were already heading north because of increasing property values/prices and taxes before Katrina. Now insurance costs (if you can even get it) are making home ownership along coastal areas even more expensive (and we're not just talking beachfront property).

Last time we were down in Florida we talked to more than one couple who had moved there from up North and were thinking of moving halfway back. This was a trend ("halfbacks" from FL) noticed in NC and TN population growth, if I recall correctly. I wonder if some of them are moving to the Southwest.

re: south

It's because of the rabid, unchecked over-building that's been going on here for the past 10-15 years as people tried to cash in on what they saw as their big chance to get rich. Other states tend to have these things called "regulations" and "zoning ordinances." I know, it's a foreign concept. But it's why the California coastline is still beautiful, and valuable, real estate.

They're over-building like crazy in Nashville, with these ridiculous downtown condo-towers. Anyone here remember Houston and Denver in the 70s and 80s? Took those cities years to recover. When Nashvilel crashes and burns all I'll be able to do is say I TOLD YOU SO.

Time to get the hell out of Dodge.

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.

More information about formatting options

Captcha
This question is used to make sure you are a human visitor and to prevent spam submissions.
Copy the characters (respecting upper/lower case) from the image.