An array of hope

The first read of February new home sales from the Commerce Department was released this morning.Economists had been expecting a decline of 5 percent from January on a seasonally adjusted basis but instead a non!statistically significant "." percent decrease was reported.#nd we are expecting springs just around the corner.The suspicious January reading was re$ised down.The year!o$er!year change was inconclusi$e.%n other words the Census and Commerce Department data can&t really tell us if the short or long trends are changing.
Soaring prices

#ccording to recent de$elopment in real estate news home prices rose up to '(.( percent. )ome prices in *i$erside are o$er (( percent and in #tlanta they are up nearly '+ percent both including sales of distressed homes. The underlying economy of ,- is doing well with a consistent increase in jobs enabling people to spend on rent leading to a strong rental demand in areas of #las.a /hiladelphia etc. %nteresting is the fact that some of these demands are coming from those who lost their homes to foreclosure and may be see.ing single!family rentals. The ,.-. was the second!fa$orite in$estment destination with 0(." billion in (1'".2ew 3or. City and 4os #ngeles in the ,- are popular destinations for Chinese buyers.
Renting over Purchase

The national $acancy rate for apartments decreased from 5 percent to 6.' percent from (117 to (1'" #t the same time the a$erage price of an existing ,.-. )ouse has risen about '6 percent according to commercial real estate news pro$ided by *eis %nc. to a newspaper report. /eople are discouraged to in$est in )ouses as a effect of housing mar.et disaster of (11+. # burden of foreclosures forced many people to mo$e out of their homes and into apartment leases. 8n the other side construction of apartments was uphold until the last few years because many builders couldn9t get loans during the credit crisis.%n certain places this led to lease and a rise in rents. This was seen as opportunity for the landlords to increase rents in many mar.ets.