Thursday, February 26, 2009

New Report: Drop in Chicago Home Sales

CPR:
The Illinois Association of Realtors says Chicago home sales are down about 25 percent. This January, about 900 homes were sold in Chicago... that's compared to the nearly 1100 in January 2008. David Hanna is president of the Chicago Association of Realtors.
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The report says the average home price last month for the Chicago area dropped below $250,000. The average in January of last year was more than $320,000.
Also from the AP new jobless claims and homesales:
New jobless claims rose more than expected last week and the number of Americans continuing to receive unemployment benefits has topped 5.1 million, fresh evidence the recession is increasingly forcing employers to shed jobs.

The Labor Department said Thursday that first-time requests for unemployment benefits jumped to 667,000 from the previous week's figure of 631,000. Analysts had expected a slight drop in claims.

The 667,000 new claims are the most since October 1982, though the labor force has grown by about half since then. The four-week average of initial claims, which smooths out fluctuations, rose to 639,000, the highest in more than 26 years.
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And new home sales tumbled 10.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 309,000 last month, the worst showing on government records going back to 1963.

The median sales price fell to $201,100 in January, a record 9.9 percent drop from the previous month. The median price is the midpoint, where half sell for more and half for less. But even lower prices and low mortgage rates haven't ended the housing market slump.

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