Existing-home sales declined in January with some buyers waiting to see how details of the economic stimulus package would affect them, according to the National Association of Realtors, while inventories fell to a two-year low.

Existing-home sales – including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – fell 5.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate1 of 4.49 million units in January from a level of 4.74 million units in December, and are 8.6 percent lower the 4.91 million-unit pace in January 2008.

NAR estimates the impact of the stimulus package and lower interest rates on the housing market to be about 900,000 additional home sales in 2009 compared to conditions before the stimulus package. Inventory is expected to fall below an 8-month supply by the year end, which would be consistent with home price stabilization.

Total housing inventory at the end of January fell 2.7 percent to 3.60 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 9.6-month supply at the current sales pace. Because sales were down, the January supply is up from a 9.4-month supply in December. Read the rest of this entry »

In January, there were 2,227 mass layoff actions involving 237,902 workers. Mass layoff events decreased by 48 over the month, while initial claims increased by 11,785. Over the year, mass layoff events increased by 751, and initial claims increased by 88,834. Forty-eight states registered over-the-year increases in average weekly initial claims.

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you, everybody.  Thank you.  Please have a seat.  Well, this says something — I don’t know what — about all of you, that I hear you really enjoyed this fiscal responsibility summit.  (Laughter.)  I mean, it’s a sign of a — (laughter) — something.  (Laughter.)  Illness, right.

I understand you guys had great breakout sessions, and my advisors just filled me in on some of the issues that came up.  I want to — I want to just provide a few opening remarks, and then we’ll just open it up for questions and comments.

The idea here was to bring everybody together because it’s been a long time since we had this conversation.  And over the last eight years, I think we’ve seen a continued deterioration in the government’s balance sheets.

My sense is that, despite partisan differences, despite regional differences and different priorities, everybody is concerned about the legacy we’re leaving to our children.  And the hope was, is that if we had a forum like this to start talking about these issues that it would turn out that there are real opportunities for progress — there are going to be some areas where we can’t make progress — but that we have more in common that we expect.  And I appreciate that while we may have different opinions, there’s a renewed willingness to put some concrete ideas on the table, even on those issues that are politically tough, and that’s real progress. Read the rest of this entry »