Current Housing Indicators |
| CURRENT | PREVIOUS | ||
| Existing Home Sales | 5.03m | ▲ | 4.89m |
| New Home Sales | 590,000 | ▼ | 601,000 |
| Housing Starts | 1.065m | ▼ | 1.071m |
| Building Permits | 978,000 | ▼ | 1.061m |
| HMI | 20 | UNCH | 20 |
| Existing Home Prices | $195,900 | ▼ (annually) | $213,500 |
| New Home Prices | $244,100 | ▼ (annually) | $250,800 |
- Home Foreclosures: Crisis Is Only Getting Deeper

- Home Prices: Glass Still Seems Half Empty

- Green Building: Are the Big Builders On Board?
- As Greenwich Goes..? Maybe Rich Aren't Immune In Housing Crisis
- Congress And Housing Rescue--Nothing Yet That Really Helps
- Big Builder Stocks: Why They're Not Much Of A Buy
- Countrywide: Could It Just Go Under And Go Away?
- Construction Job Losses: I Think We're Missing Something Here

- Builders Facing Facts: No Congressional Bail-Out
- Homebuilders Back On Capitol Hill--And Still Feeling Ignored

- Home Foreclosures: Crisis Is Only Getting Deeper
- Your First Move For Thursday May 15th

- Web Extra: Ship Shape Trade

- Sudden Death: Athenahealth, Alcoa and More
- Emerging Money: Turkey

- Mad Mail: Back in the Saddle with Garmin?

- Pops & Drops: Nike, Whole Foods...

- Lightning Round OT: Ameritrade, Deere and More

- Future Trade: Entertainment

- Social Anxiety

- Top Gun

- Your First Move For Thursday May 15th
- Rough Economy Now Hitting CEO Paychecks
- Foreclosure Fallout: Condo Owners Pay for Neighbors
- European Earnings: Beer, BT Shine

- Gutierrez: US, China Need to Fight Protectionism
- BT Buoys Flat Markets; Barclays Weighs
- Barclays Profit Drops After $1.95 Billion Writedown
- Europe Comeback: Germany Drives Euro-Zone Growth
- Zurich Financial's Quarter Profit Beats Forecast
- European Shares set to Ease, Barclays Reports
- Toyota Agrees to 30% Steel Price Hikes

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AP |
What’s interesting to me about this number is that at the beginning of the downturn in housing we didn’t see a huge drop in construction jobs, primarily because workers moved from residential into commercial.
Now that commercial is slowing as well, construction workers are falling out of jobs like flies. And they’re not the only ones. Big surprise furniture manufacturing jobs are falling as well. Domain furniture, a fave of mine, recently went out of business.
Anything related to housing right now appears to be toxic. I even read an article in the Washington Post about how garden centers are doing all they can to get people to spend money on the stuff around their homes. Discounts are big, so get thee to the nursery soon!
But getting back to the jobs number. Nearly half a million jobs gone from one sector alone, and yet you don’t hear so much about jobs in all the talk from lawmakers and policy-makers. It’s all about homeowners/borrowers and bailouts. I wonder if we’re not missing something here.
Questions? Comments?




