Dennis Norman Musings

Dennis Norman

Today the National Association of REALTORS(R) released its existing home sales report for June showing an increase in sales for the 3rd month in a row and home prices declining less sharply.

Existing home sales, including single-family, town-homes, condominiums and co-ops increased 3.6% in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.89 million units.  This rate is almost identical to last years sales at the same time which is a first in a quite a while.  May’s rate was down 3.6% from a year ago and June is down just 0.2% from a year ago.

Also for the first time in a while, all four regions of the U.S. had an increase in sales for the month with the West leading the pack with a 6.4% increase followed by the South at 4.9%, Northeast at 2.5% and the Midwest a 0.9%. Read more…

By: Dennis Norman

In my last post I looked at the purchase of a new home as an investment and how it has fared as an investment over the past few decades.  My analysis showed that an investment in a new home has historically (at least during the 38 period I covered) performed close to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and in the past 8 years out performed it by a significant amount proving that, as an investment, a new home does fine over time.

That post just looked at new homes and I promised I would do the same analysis of an investment in an existing house and here it is.  Below is a table showing median prices of Existing homes in 10 year increments starting with 1970, I then added 2005, 2007 and 2008 to bring the data into Read more…