Real estate new home sales for 2010 hit low numbers not seen in 47 years.
New home sales for all of 2010 totaled 321,000, a drop of 14.4 percent from the 375,000 homes sold in 2009, the Commerce Department reported. This marks the fifth consecutive year that sales have declined after hitting record highs for the five previous years when the housing market was booming.
Home prices fell in November in 19 of 20 major cities measured by the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index, and nine of those cities fell to their lowest point since the housing bust.
The good news is that in December, new home sales rose in all parts of the country except the Northeast, which saw a 5 percent decline. Sales jumped 71.9 percent in the West and were up 3.2 percent in the Midwest and 1.8 percent in the South.
