Home Sales, Housing Starts and Home Prices
The Graph of the Week looks at when Home sales, housing starts, and home prices will hit bottom and start to recover, as forecast by the NABE Outlook panel in May 2009. From the survey:
Home sales (new and existing combined) are close to their cycle low, with 72% of panelists expecting sales to hit bottom by midyear. Over 60% expect housing starts to have bottomed by midyear. However, the stabilization in home sales and starts is occurring at the expense of significant home price concessions, where the timing of the bottom remains uncertain: 30% of panelists expect that this could occur by the third quarter, 30% project the fourth quarter, while another 40% foresee house price declines continuing into 2010 or later. Nevertheless, the median forecast is that home prices will rise 1% in 2010.
NABE members can read the whole report, and download the spreadsheet containing the data, here. There is a summary available to the public.