Residential housing market shows signs of life

05.24.09
By Lewis Green

Last week the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index rose by two points and the group said that builder confidence for newly built homes increased for the second straight month.

NAHB chairman Joe Robson said that builders' confidence is stemming from residential housing market conditions that seem to be improving. He said that tax credits, affordable prices and low mortgage loan rates are creating a perfect storm for homebuyers.

Meanwhile, there are signs that consumers really are showing increased interest in the housing market.

According to comScore, a company that tracks consumer activity online, in addition to increased traffic to social media sites and swine flu research sources, Americans were actively using the internet to look at real estate sites in April.

Move Network, Yahoo Real Estate and AOL Real Estate sites all showed increased web traffic with 13.2 million, 6.8 million and 3.6 million monthly visitors respectively.

Consumers surfing the web for real estate information may have been looking for properties for sale in the area, information on home loan refinancing or even home repair projects to get houses in shape for potential buyer visits.

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Web patterns show consumer interest in real estate