Still a great time to purchase a home
(northjersey.com) “New-home sales in the United States rose more than forecast in December, showing that the real estate market is improving following its biggest slump since 1990.
The 4.8 percent increase represented an annual pace of 1.12 million new homes, the most since April, from a 1.069 million rate the prior month, the Commerce Department said Friday in Washington. For all of last year, sales dropped 17 percent, the biggest decline in 16 years, to 1.061 million, from a record-high 1.283 million in 2005.
[...]
In New Jersey, most new-home buyers are already homeowners, and when they ran into trouble selling their current homes, many backed off from buying, O’Keefe said. “Both housing construction and new-home sales are slow here because our resale market remains lethargic,” he said.
In 2007, builders are expected to construct 27,000 new housing units in New Jersey, down from an estimated 33,000 in 2006, O’Keefe said.
Buyers were lured back into the market after builders cut prices and sweetened incentives.
Combined with more jobs, rising incomes and still-cheap mortgage rates, the sales increase may give companies such as Lennar Corp. reason to be more optimistic on the outlook for this year.” (source)
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Out here in California, new home builders are almost to the point of paying folks to purchase their standing inventory. What I bolded in the above passage is perhaps the main reason why potential new home buyers have been backing off the market.
>>>To all of my single readers, this is a good time to purchase a home–even if you use it as investment property. Rates are still reasonably low and as I just mentioned, you will have the upper hand with your negotiations. Don’t sleep!! <<<
