National Real Estate stuff...

Meh... Not much fun in dealing with these sorts of reports.

Here's a few blurbs from the first article... (both articles found on MarketWatch.com)

Realtors' group calls on Obama to adopt housing stimulus measures

That's part of the headline to the article... wow... NAR is testing my will to remain a member quite a bit these days. First asking members to support the (now failing) bailout, and now running to a new president looking for a handout. Sad.

On to other bits...

Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, noted that the drop in October sales didn't breach the "gentle upward trend" in sales.

But he pointed out that much of the activity is now related to foreclosures.

Along these lines, the NAR estimates that 45% of all transactions are tied to properties in foreclosure.

Our local market is above the pace based on the latest reports from the last few months here at MOCO.

Meanwhile, the median sales prices fell 11.3% in the past year to $183,300, the October data showed. This marked the lowest sales price since March 2004.

The local median price was the lowest in Kingman since July of 2004 according to the data I have been tracking (since 2004).

(NAR Chief Economist Lawrence) Yun called on the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama to fund a $50 billion stimulus program for housing by lowering interest rates on new mortgages. Essentially, the government would pay points on new mortgages so buyers could qualify for lower rates.

In addition, the NAR would support direct purchases of long-term mortgages in the open market to bring down long-term mortgage rates, Yun said.

I'm just not in the mood for this.

The other article, linked here, is a wrap up from last month that the Case-Shiller group tracks.

Home prices in 20 major U.S. cities dropped 1.8% in September from the prior month, and they fell a record 17.4% on a year-over-year basis, according to the Case-Shiller home price index published Tuesday by Standard & Poor's.

Shouldn't be a shock.

Here's how prices in the 20 cities performed in the past year:

Phoenix, down 31.9%; Las Vegas, down 31.3%; Miami, down 28.4%; San Francisco, down 29.5%; Los Angeles, down 27.6%; San Diego, down 26.3%; Detroit, down 18.6%; Tampa, down 18.5%, Washington, down 17.2%; Minneapolis, down 14.4%; Chicago, down 10.1%; Seattle, down 9.8%; Atlanta, down 9.5%; Portland, down 8.6%; New York, down 7.3%; Cleveland, down 6.4%; Boston, down 5.7%; Denver, down 5.4%; Charlotte, down 3.5%; Dallas, down 2.7%.

Emphasis mine above as a reminder that we are located in between both bolded locations.