Bargain Hunters Help Shrink Housing Glut

Here in Phoenix we are heading into the slower holiday months of November and December, tis the season..for...Buying that home?? Things are shaping up for a better 2009.
City agents confirm that the Investors are out in groves buying the deals.

Less homes on the market, lower prices and if the experts are right, a lot of folks here in the Phoenix Az area withdrew a ton of cash from the markets and might be looking for somewhere to invest... Obviously, hard to say... the City agents I've been speaking with confirm that cash is still king...

So where has all the excess inventory gone, ask the Wall Street Journal...

Bargain Hunters Help Shrink Housing Glut

Lower home prices are luring some buyers back into the U.S. housing market, but foreclosures and a weakening economy are likely to keep downward pressure on prices for at least another year, economists say.

A quarterly Wall Street Journal survey of housing data in 28 major metro areas shows that the glut of unsold homes listed for sale is shrinking in most of them. In many cases, sales have been stimulated by investors who are grabbing what they see as bargains on homes that can be turned into rentals. Metro areas with the biggest drops in for-sale signs include Sacramento and Orange County in California and the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.

The recent headlines give a mixed picture. On Monday, the Census Bureau reported that new home sales in September were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 464,000 units, down 33% from September 2007. The median sales price for new homes in September was $218,400, down 9% from a year earlier. Last week, the National Association of Realtors said sales of previously occupied homes in September edged up 1.4% from the depressed year-earlier level, the first such rise since November 2005, largely reflecting sales of foreclosed homes.

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