Woes extend to luxury home market
Even the wealthy are putting off home buying, and a new website is keeping track of the market inaction.
From Wednesday's Wall Street Journal:
Troubles in the home-building industry keep getting worse. Toll Brothers Inc. said Tuesday that customer traffic and sales hit record lows last month, as the financial meltdown spooked an already weak market and triggered a wave of contract cancellations.
Chief Executive Robert Toll said signs of stabilizing conditions through the summer and into early September were "upended by the past month's financial crisis" and the fear of job and stock-market losses.
The Horsham, Pa.-based company, which builds higher-cost homes, took orders for just 539 houses in its fiscal fourth quarter ended Oct. 31, down 27% from a year ago.
The recently launched Institute for Luxury Home Marketing site reports that nationwide the composite price of a luxury home recently was $1,154,881 and it sat on the market for an average of 145 days.
Drilling down to the California metro areas: Los Angeles luxury homes clocked in at $2,272,997 and 111 days on the market; Sacramento/Tahoe, $839,919, 122 days; San Diego, $2,137,596, 83 days, and San Francisco, $1,966,582, 82 days.
--Lauren Beale
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Photo: A Toll Brothers Inc. development in Moorpark, Calif. Credit: Ric Francis / Associated Press
