Existing Home Sale Projected To Improve In 2008

By: Steve Barker. ABR, GRI, CIPS,
Broker Associate &
Certified International Property Specialist
Amerivest Realty, Naples
Cell : (239) 293- 4327
Fax : (239) 687- 4071
www.sebarker.com
steve@sebarker.com

An increase in sales of existing homes is forecast during 2008, according to the latest projection from Dr Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist and the head of research for NAR. The increase is unlikely to be large but it he is confident it will break the recent downward trend now that the past months mortgage problems are being worked out and stabilized.

He reported in December "Now that mortgage conditions have improved, some postponed activity should turn up in existing-home sales over the next couple of months, and I expect sales at fairly stable to slightly higher levels.”

"The improvement in the Northeast reaffirms a trend apparent for some months now that shows signs of recovery, noteworthy because that was the first region to slump, and the gain in the West indicates some easing of interest rates for jumbo loans,” Yun said.

Dr Yun constantly has access to study a wealth of actual past and present sales data to formulate and project sales trends before publishing any conclusion.

Of course, there are many factors that are hard to estimate and work into any such prediction, such as the effect on buyers confidence to purchase while being constantly told by the media that things will get worse. Lets hope the media soon realise that while the cause can be attributed to such things as the unhealthy and frenzied buying in 2005 along with the sub prime mortgage market, the continuation of the decline now is directly related to the media's drive to report everything negative, at every opportunity and in any form available. If the positive predictions where promoted with such determination and emthusiasm, there would be a much quicker recovery.

To read DR Yun's full article, Click Here