The comparison of housing market statistics against last year’s results produced misdirection in our understanding of it’s current state. Although a year-over-year comparison gets rid of seasonality, the results are at the mercy of how normal the prior year was…
The slowdown in the U.S. housing market has caused much hand-wringing. But keep this in mind: robust housing sales and price gains in 2013 were the anomaly and at odds with tepid economic fundamentals such as income, employment and credit. It’s the year-over-year comparisons that make things look worse than they are.
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Understanding Housing’s Dog Days.
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Tags: Existing Home Sales, Listing Inventory, Pending Home Sale Index, median sales price, S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, NAR, National Association of Realtors