NAR Predicts Lower Prices & Slower Sales

More good news for Buyers!

Today's the latest market predictions from NAR (National Association of Realtors) came out. NAR has a new senior economist, Lawrence Yun, who replaced the recently departed (and always controversial) David Lareah and it comes as no surprise that his take is not quite as "rosy" as his predecessors.

Here's the high points:

• Sales of existing homes to drop 4.6 percent this year to 6.2 million.
• Sales of new homes are forecast to drop 18.2 percent to 860,000 compared with an earlier estimate of a 14.2 percent decline.
• The median price of existing homes, which make up about 85 percent of the market, will fall in 2007 for the first time since the 1960s, when the group began keeping records.
• The median price for existing homes is expected to drop 1.3 percent to $219,000 this year, lower than the group's April forecast of a 0.7 decline.
• The predicted decline comes after a 1 percent gain in home prices last year and an increase of more than 12 percent in 2005.
• Next year, though, the NAR expected the market to rebound, and existing home prices are forecast to rise 1.7 percent.
  

Lawrence Yun added that sales have been stronger in lower-price markets, dragging down median prices, an effect he described as a "temporary distortion."

Keep in mind these National trends and predictions are only slightly indicative of the local real estate scene. As we have seen, things have been going at a slower pace here locally but we have yet to see any significant drops in value.

Stay tuned...