Just in! There just might be some good news in the housing market effective March, 2010. Maybe we are seeing the opposite of the old saying, “What goes up, must come down.” So now, what has gone down, just might be finding its way up.
Last March, sales of new homes broke out of a four-month winter slump with sales soaring 26.9% over February, the government recently said, (evidence that federal tax incentives for buyers that just expired were strong incentives for homebuyers.)
The good news came after a report showed that sales of previously-owned homes rose 6.8% in March. Although new-home sales make up a much smaller share of home-buying activity, economists are also watching that data carefully as an indicator of whether the beleaguered construction industry will begin to add jobs in substantial numbers.
New-home sales in March jumped the most in markets hit by February’s winter storms. They rose 43.5% in the South, 35.7% in the Northeast, 5.7% in the West and 4.3% in the Midwest.
But don’t get too excited just yet. “The one thing to keep in mind is that these are still really horrible numbers,” said Patrick Newport, U.S. economist for the consultancy IHS Global Insight. “The only reason they look good is because February’s were the worst numbers ever.”
Oh well, we’d rather look on the bright side … up is up isn’t it?
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