Well, it isn’t all bad. At least the housing market appears to be finding a bottom — despite the billions and billions of taxpayer dollars outlaid to cushion its fall:
WASHINGTON — Sales of new homes dropped sharply last month to the slowest pace on record, the latest sign that the economic recovery is fading.
The Commerce Department said Wednesday that new home sales fell 12.4 percent in July from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 276,600. That was the slowest pace on records dating back to 1963. The past three months have been the worst on record for new home sales.
Weak sales mean fewer jobs in the construction industry, which normally powers economic recoveries. Each new home built creates, on average, the equivalent of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in taxes, according to the National Association of Home Builders.
“If new homes aren’t selling, there’s no incentive to build more,” said Nigel Gault, chief economist at IHS Global Insight.
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