New Home Sales Rise Marginally in August

Following four months of solid gains, sales of newly built, single-family homes edged up by less than one percent in August 2009 as the window for an important buyer incentive began to close, according to data recently released by the U.S. Commerce Department. Sales posted a meager 0.7% gain to a seasonally adjusted, annual rate of 429,000 units for the month.
“With the $8,000 home buyer tax credit set to expire at the end of November, prospects for being able to purchase a newly built home and have that transaction completed in time to take advantage of the credit dimmed considerably as of August,” said National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Chairman Joe Robson, a home builder from Tulsa, Okla. “Congress must take immediate action to extend the tax credit if the positive momentum in home sales is to continue so that a sustained housing and economic recovery can take hold.”
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18% of Prospective First-Time Home Buyers Say Extending $8,000 Tax Credit Would be Primary Influence on Decision to Buy

Nearly one in five (18%) prospective first-time home buyers said extending the $8,000 tax credit would be the primary influence on their decision to buy a home before the end of 2010, according to a Zillow survey. That would equate to 334,000 buyers from Dec. 1, 2009 to Nov. 30, 2010 – a likely time period for an extension, according to additional analysis.
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Households’ Net Worth Rises for First Time in Two Years

American households were $2 trillion richer on June 30, 2009 than they were three months earlier, the first time in two years that household net worth has increased, the Federal Reserve recently reported.
Household wealth rose in the second quarter at a 17% annual rate, or $2 trillion, to $53.1 trillion after falling at a 13% rate in the first quarter, the Fed said. It was the first time since the second quarter of 2007 that wealth had increased. Net worth is down $12.2 trillion from the peak in 2007, an indication of how much the collapse in stock prices and home prices have hurt. The figures are not adjusted for inflation
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Home prices’ big role as crisis hit state hard

The bankruptcy of Lehman Bros. reverberated with particular fury in California, where it helped deepen a recession already under way and sent the Bay Area into a spiral of job losses that has not yet ended.
California, whose 11.9 percent unemployment rate exceeds the 9.7 percent U.S. average, is suffering disproportionately from the aftereffects of the ensuing crisis because it was such a big culprit in the excesses that led the financial system to ruin.
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Expiring Tax Credit Drives Up Home Sales

First-time home buyers are scrambling to qualify for a federal tax credit that expires Nov. 30 and has been driving up sales activity after the worst downturn in decades.
Now, the coming expiration will help show if the improvement will last.
The tax credit, worth as much as $8,000, is available to first-time home buyers who close deals by Nov. 30. That means they have only a few more weeks to sign contracts because the closing process can be lengthy.
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