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Neighbor News

Bergen County Homeowners See US Home Sales Peak for 2014

The question of whether or not to sell this time of year is always a tricky one... When rates go down, sales go up!

paulaclarkteam, Neighbor


In TV commercials, the idea is to get the point across as economically as possible. That’s

why, when the theme is a thriving business, they show a graph with lines that move up (often at an

angle that would worry a mountain goat). It makes for an easily grasped, direct message.

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Alas, graphs showing Bergen County home sales never seem to show such neat, orderly trajectory—

and that’s for any number of reasons. For instance, if some closings happen to be delayed by a day

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or two for clerical reasons, they may show as having fallen out of one month, only to show up the

next. The real world is like that.

Keeping track of national home sales numbers is subject to the interventions of that same

stubbornly real world, of course; so when home sales registered a slight drop in August, few

seasoned analysts saw it as an emerging trend...or so it seemed.

That reading was confirmed when it turned out existing U.S. home sales notched the fastest

pace of the year in September. Commentators who had been noting the August falloff picked up on

the shift quickly. A few gleanings:

“...existing home sales increased 2.4 percent to an annual

rate of 5.17 million units, the strongest reading since

September of last year.” –Reuters

“...single­family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co­ops,

increased 2.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of

5.17 million in September from 5.05 million in August. Sales are

now at their highest pace of 2014”–the Realtor®

“...Sales in September were up 17% from a year earlier...in the

U.S. rose...to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of

467,000...”–The Wall St. Journal

Area homeowners have been hoping that the continued level of low mortgage interest rates

would spur home sales in Bergen County, especially now that regulators are working on relaxing tough

regulations that have discouraged lenders from issuing loans to any but the most prime credit risks.

Young people and others with less than stellar credit have sometimes found themselves eyeing

those low rates, but frustratingly unable to take advantage of the situation. It has been a real weak

point in the housing rebound, so opening up the mortgage spigots would allow many first time Bergen

home buyers a chance to enter the market.

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