Top news
The top news this week showed existing homes sales rising once again in November as first-time buyers rushed to close sales before the original November 30 deadline for the recently extended and expanded tax credit. Existing home sales rose 7.4% in November 2009 and that’s a staggering 44.1% higher than in November of 2008 — these are the highest-level sales figures since February of 2007.
If you’ve been listening to the show regularly, we’ve been saying that a big jump towards the end of the year, spurred on by first time buyers, could well be on the cards — an NAR practitioner survey has shown this to be quite the substantial fact, showing first-time buyers purchased 51% of homes in November, compared with an upwardly revised 50% of transactions in October.
Of course, low interest rates certainly have something to do with it as well. According to Freddie Mac, the national average commitment rate for a 30-year, conventional, fixed-rate mortgage fell to 4.88% in November from 4.95% in October; the rate was 6.09% in November 2008. Last month’s mortgage interest rate was the second lowest on record after bottoming at 4.81% this past April.
