Quote from Smart Money:
My point was the jabs I've been taking because I'm vocal in my opinion that we are at or near the bottom of the housing market. I'm not hedging by saying "near"...re-read my posts and I've said it all along.
In this thread, I noted that the new home sales the article referenced were recorded when customers signed up to have a house built for them. With the slow down, many of the builders, including builders locally to me, cut their construction work force and they are instructing their sales force to push existing inventory...a rational move. They aren't trying to build new houses while they have too much inventory...that would be stupid...so I don't think their cutting back is a sign that "there is no bottom in sight".
If we imagine a publically company selling widgets. Sales for widgets were off for a while so their inventories built up. As a response to this, the widget company slowed the manufacturing of widgets and focused on selling excess widgets to whittle down inventory. If I read that a company did that, while at the same time, sales and price increases in the general widget market were being observed, I'd think that this would be bullish for the company and the widget market in general. Especially if everyone had to own a widget.
SM