DOUBLE CODE RED

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New U.S. single-family home sales fell 2.8 percent in January to the lowest rate in nearly 13 years while the median sales price slipped and the housing overstock shrank, according to a government report on Wednesday that delivered more grim news for the ailing housing sector.

New home sales fell to an annual rate of 588,000 from an upwardly revised rate of 605,000 in December, the Commerce Department said. Economists polled by Reuters were expecting January sales to fall to an annual rate of 600,000 from the December previously reported rate of 604,000. In January, the median sales price for a new home fell 15.1 percent $216,000 from $254,400 a year ago. There were 482,000 homes for sale at the end of the month, a 2.2 percent decline from December, but the months' supply crept up slightly to 9.9 months at the current pace, the highest since October 1981.

Damn 15% slide in prices. And this doesn't even include the freebies thrown in. How would you like to be the guy who bought a new house last year for $500K and find out today the same house is selling for $425k? A nice loss of $75K. Ahh but you got to live the American Dream of home ownership. Kudos to you.

And speaking of stupid, anyone else see this new show on HGTV ( I think) where a couple gets to choose from 3 homes that they will renovate? I though the flip shows were bad this one is even worse. They are taken to 3 shitholes by their ever charming agent. Then an even more charming home decorator shows them how totally like awesome the house could be renovated. And then the couple chooses one of the three options. This is yet one more attempt by the NAR to create false scarcity. Oh no there are only 3 houses to choose from, better grab one of them before they're all snapped up. Never mind that there are 300 others just like the 3 you saw around the corner.

And they take these renovation estimates as gospel. Oh look honey the home decorator said it would cost $50K. And the real estate agent said if we put $50K into it, we could sell it for $125K more. Woo hoo. Seems like there is an endless supply of these morons who'll believe the lies. I expect President MESSIAH OBAMA to be bailing these dopes out somewhere mid-2010.