Housing market continues to slide
By Purchasing Staff -- Purchasing, 8/29/2007 1:43:00 PM
The inventory of unsold single-family properties soared to the highest in over 15 years in July as troubles in the sub-prime mortgage market continue to wreak havoc on the housing sector. Home sales slid 0.2% in July to a seasonally adjusted 5.75 million unit annual rate, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors as reported by The New York Times.
That brought the supply of unsold homes at the current sales pace to 9.6 months' worth, the highest on record since 1999, when the association began tracking all types of properties, such as condominiums, together with single-family homes.
Worries over the housing market coupled with high energy costs have eroded investor confidence, with the UBS/Gallup Index of investor confidence falling for the third straight month, bringing it down to the lowest reading in a year. This sentiment also held true for a panel of key business economists who in a survey for the National Association for Business Economics concluded that the risk of massive defaults on sub-prime mortgages and heavy debts is a bigger threat to U.S. economic prosperity than terrorism.
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