A report published Tuesday showed that home values fell nearly 3 percent in January 2009 versus the month prior and by 19 percent from last year. On the surface, data from the study looks like more bad news for housing. With deeper inspection, though, we uncover reasons to discount the report’s finding. For one, the report includes home price data from just 20 cities around the country — and they’re not the 20 most populated cities, either. For example, data from #4-ranked Houston is not included and neither is #7 San Antonio nor #10 San Jose. #54 Tampa, however, is included. Secondly, the report is two months lagging. Published March 31, its data is only accurate as of January and a lot has happened in the last 2 months. This includes a record-drop in interest rates and the introduction of an $8,000 tax credit for qualified first-time home buyers. The stimulus has helped raise home sales volume on both new […]

Each month, the National Association of REALTORS® releases a study called the Existing Home Sales report.  It’s a detailed look at “used” home sale data from all four regions of the country. Among the key findings of each Existing Home Sales report is something called the “median sales price”, the statistical price point at which half of the homes in the U.S. sold for more, and half sold for less.  Last month, the median sales price in the United States fell to $165,400, down 15.5 percent from a year ago. Nevertheless, just because the median sales price is lower from last year doesn’t mean that the housing market is losing steam. The median sales price is just the middle point of all home sales in all U.S. markets.  By definition, it groups New York City and Danville, Illinois; Los Angeles and Cheyenne — markets that have little do with one another.  When median sales prices are falling, it doesn’t point to housing weakness, per […]