Sales Prices on Existing Family Homes and What It Means for 2013

Ed Yardeni writes:Dr. Ed's Blog: Global Economy

New home sales jumped 5.7% during September, confirming that the month’s 11.0% pop in single-family housing starts wasn’t a statistical fluke. Especially encouraging is that home prices have stopped falling as the inventories of new and existing unsold homes have declined. Indeed, during September, median prices for new and existing single-family homes rose 11.7% and 11.4%, on a y/y basis.

Yardeni is correct about the data, just keep in mind that it is a Bernanke manipulated climb in prices. The capital goods sector (including housing) get the money first, but then it works its way to the consumer sector. Translation: As long as Bernanke continues to print aggressively, housing prices will continue to climb, eventually translating into higher prices for everyday consumer goods.

2013 is likely to be a very bad year for the economy---with tax hikes on top of it.