Existing Home Sales

Existing home sales surpassed street estimates, coming in at a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of 4.72 million. Of note, 45% of all sales were composed of distressed properties.

The above graph tracks the median sales price versus the amount of inventory since January, 2008. The last two month's of data are pretty much on top of each other. Part of me wants to say that this is a sign of the bottom. Inventory seems to have stabilized and the price drop since June, 2008 is 23%. This is not a great answer, but I have a gut feeling that we have not seen the bottom in residential real estate. More layoffs are on the horizon and ARM resets will be a drag for the rest of the year.