US homes: the news is worse and worser

For an indication of just how bad things are getting over there, look no further than the new home sales data for August.

Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture paints the car crash scene:

* Sales are down 21.2% in the past year;
* August's sales pace was weaker than expected;
* The sales figures do not account for cancelled sales contracts (presently running above 30%);
* The median sales price of new houses sold in August 2007 was $225,700; the average sales price was $292,000. This is a drop of 7.5%, is the largest year-over-year price decline in 37 years.
* Reported sales prices do not include non-monetary incentives, such as paid real estate taxes, kitchen upgrades, installed pools, free vacations or new cars.

Economist Nouriel Roubini reads the last rites:

‘[The numbers] are the last nail in the coffin of a housing market that was comatose until now and is now effectively dead. The only things alive and moving in the housing market today's are the undertakers taking care of a zombie housing market and carrying the coffin.’