New Home Sales Crater To Lowest Since October; Biggest Drop Since May 2010

And so the housing "recovery" comes to a screeching halt, which is not surprising as there never was a recovery to begin with.  Moments ago cheerleaders of the second housing bubble were shocked to learn that in July a tiny 35K new houses were sold (with just 3K sold in the Northeast, and just 19K in the otherwise strong South), of which 13K houses were not even started.

This translated into a puny 394K seasonally adjusted annualized sales, missing expectations of 487K by nearly a massive 100K, and in addition the June print was revised much lower from 497K to 455K (which back in July beat expectations of 484K and was trumpeted as the highest print since 2008 - so much for that).

Yet one thing that did not change is that the median home sale price decline continued, and in July dropped to $257.2K down from $258.5. And now time to spin this ugly news as great because it means that maybe the Fed will delay the September taper (it won't). Read more >>

American Dream Slipping as Homeownership at 18-Year Low

The U.S. homeownership rate, which soared to a record high 69.2 percent in 2004, is back where it was two decades ago, before the housing bubble inflated, busted and ripped more than 7 million Americans from their homes.

With ownership at 65 percent and home values rising, housing industry and consumer groups are pressing lawmakers to make the American Dream more inclusive by ensuring new mortgage standards designed to prevent another crash are flexible enough that more families can benefit from the recovery. Regulators are close to proposing a softened version of a rule requiring banks to keep a stake in risky mortgages they securitize, according to five people familiar with the discussions.

Lawmakers currently shaping housing finance are seeking to reduce the government’s role in keeping rates affordable for riskier borrowers while ensuring homeownership is within reach of minorities and first-time buyers who could be needed to sustain the housing recovery as borrowing costs rise from record lows. Who will be able to buy property depends on the balance they reach, according to Anthony Sanders, a professor of real estate finance at George Mason University in Fairfax Virginia. Read more >>

We Are in Age of ‘Late Great Depression’: Shiller

The world is in a state of “late Great Depression,” well-known economist and author Robert Shiller told CNBC Monday.

The Yale economics professor, who helped devise the Case-Shiller index for housing market trends, and famously called the dotcom bubble of the early 2000s and the housing market bubble later in the decade, told “Squawk Box Europe” that the world is in a “new age of austerity.”

“Our whole economy has been affected by variations in confidence. Central banks are sort of trusted, but the actions they have often affect people’s confidence by appearance rather than substance. We’re not in the most trusting mood now,” Shiller said. Shiller, the co-creator of the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index, also said there would be no housing rebound for a generation.  More...

U.S. Homeownership Hits Decade Low

PRINCETON, NJ - The 62% of Americans who say they own their own home marks a new low since Gallup began tracking self-reported homeownership in 2001.

The current level of homeownership marks a decline from 68% in 2011. For most of the prior decade, roughly seven in 10 Americans reported owning their own home. While the recession and financial crisis took place in 2008-2009, homeownership rates didn't begin to reflect the bursting of the housing bubble until 2010, when 65% of Americans reported owning their own home -- the lowest level recorded before this year. More...