New home sales plummet to 12-year-low

WASHINGTON -- Sales of new homes in November plummeted to their lowest level in more than 12 years, a report said Friday.

New-home sales tumbled 9 percent in November from October to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 647,000, the Commerce Department reported Friday. That was the worst sales pace since April 1995.

"It was ugly," declared Richard Yamarone, economist at Argus Research. "It is the one sector of the economy that doesn't show any signs of life. It doesn't look like there is any resuscitation in store for housing over the next year," he said.

"I think you can classify what we are seeing in the housing market as a crash," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "Sales and home prices are in a free fall. The downturn is intensifying."

In Illinois, there were 9,021 total home sales, which include single-family homes and condominiums, in November, down 20.4 percent from November 2006, according to a report also issued Friday by the Illinois Association of Realtors.

Year-to-date, sales were down 16.3 percent to 131,497 homes sold January through November, compared to the same period last year.

In the Chicago area, home sales totaled 5,772 in November 2007, down 23.9 percent from the same month last year. Year-to-date, sales were down 19.6 percent to 87,624.

The Chicago area median home sale price in November was $247,000, up 0.8 percent from $245,000 in November 2006, according to the association. Statewide, the median sale price was $193,000 for the month, down 3 percent from a year ago.