According to a new survey by the Public Policy Institute of California, most Californians are in favor of Jerry Brown’s recent proposal to increase income taxes on high income earners and increase the sales tax from 7.25 to 7.75 percent. From their press release:
U.S. home prices increased 3.1 percent the second quarter of the year, spurred by seasonal factors and the expiring federal tax credit, according to figures released today by secondary mortgage lender Freddie Mac.
The rate translate to a 13.2 percent gain on an annualize basis when compared to the first quarter of the year. Prices were down 0.2 percent compared to the same period one year earlier. “We saw increases in home values in the second quarter that were very strong across all regions,” said Amy Crew Cutts, deputy chief economist for Freddie Mac. “there is no doubt that some of this was due in part to the now-expired homebuyer tax credits which boosted sales activity as well as to the usual seasonal bump we see each Spring.”
Oddly enough, although sales prices increased, home values – a measure that includes both sales prices and appraised home values obtained for mortgage refinancing – declined 0.5 percent during the quarter, an annual rate of 1.8 percent. Freddie Mac re Read more…
New home sales posted their biggest monthly increase in half a century in March, bouncing back from an all-time low in February with a whopping 27 percent increase.
One big word of caution, though – much of it could all be due to sampling error in the survey. Monthly figures released today by the Commerce Department reported that sales of newly-built, single-family homes rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 411,000 units in March, up from an upwardly revised rate of 324,000 in February. Even with the revision, February’s rate was an all-time low for the survey. Analysts attribute the increase in March sales to an early spring that helped bring out home shoppers and the pending expiration of the home buyer’s tax credit at the end of April. Even so, the increase far exceeded the expectations of economists, who were predicting only a slight gain. All of which brings up the question of the accuracy of the survey. The Comm Read more…