Home Sales Drop in December. What is the effect on Santa Rosa Real Estate

Another data point in a long line of downward pressure. Santa Rosa real estate is not immune to national trends and this data on new homes is shocking. Annual new home sales of 331,000 with more than a year of inventory. Don't look for construction jobs to be back anytime soon.

clipped from finance.yahoo.com The Commerce Department said Thursday that new home sales fell 14.7 percent in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 331,000, from a downwardly revised November figure of 388,000. December's sales pace was the lowest on records dating back to 1963. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected sales would fall to a rate of 400,000 homes. The inventory of unsold new homes stood at a seasonally adjusted 357,000 in December, down 10 percent from November. But at the current sales pace, it would take a more than a year to exhaust the stock as houses are dumped onto a market already glutted by a tide of foreclosures.