Tired of seeing charts like this one?  You may see something like the reverse soon (imagine the graphic upside down).  Although the Fed stopped raising interest rates last quarter, home sales continue to slow, but for how long?  History teaches that it may not be too long before home sales begin to rise again - as long as the rest of the economy takes a little turn as well.

The consumer confidence index, or how people who spend money in this country feel about the economy, “brightened” more than expected in September, causing realtor’s hearts to skip a beat.  This may be an overstatement, given that consumer confidence is only loosely related to the housing market (and condo sales!).  Most likely the confidence index was up because of declining gas prices and the leveling off of interest rate increases.  But will Joe Consumer shovel out the dough for a new condo in Chicago because he believes the economy to be somewhat “better”?  We’ll have to see.  Check for an update next month.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 19th, 2006 at 5:08 pm and is filed under Market Update(t) , Mortgage Information(t) . You can leave a response.