Bushonomics: “I Bought This Car because the Front Seats Turn into a Bed” Dept. 1
Trickle down turns to flushed down:
The Standard & Poor’s/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas released on Tuesday showed prices of previously owned homes fell 2.2 percent in March, deepening their year-on-year decline.
Separately, the Conference Board said its consumer confidence index slumped to 57.2 this month from 62.8 in April as rising gasoline costs and falling home prices made Americans increasingly nervous both about current conditions and the future.
In one positive sign, however, the Commerce Department said sales of newly constructed single-family homes rose in April for the first time in six months, while the inventory of unsold new homes declined for the 12th straight month. But the previous month’s decline was even steeper than first reported.
I wonder–I really do, because I’m too lazy to look it up tonight and I have to be out of here early tomorrow–how much the sales of newly constructed homes were affected by price cuts by the developers, where “from the low $290s” might have changed to “from the low $250s“?
Anyone care to do my work for me? (That means find some statistics, not opine some sadistics.)
May 28, 2008 at 7:06 am
The chance to buy a home at a 14% discount is a rarity and something I hope people are smart enough to take advantage of. Saving $14,000 on a 100,000 house will take a lot of sting out of $5 a gallon gas prices.