New home sales up

The Commerce Dept. reported new home sales rose 2.4% in July, but sales in June fell to the lowest point since Sept. 1991. Tighter lending could stall any housing recovery. The sub-prime mortgage fiasco continues to affect lenders and mortgage holders, as the huge losses by the lenders are yet to play out. They simply can not and will not approve high risk loans anymore. That disqualifies many potential home buyers. Most experts agree the credit crunch will not ease, and with it the upswing in new home building, until 2010. Defaults on mortgages continue at a high rate, and foreclosures increase. Many of the new home sales in July were homes deeply discounted by builders simply to get warm paying bodies in many units that have sat completed and unsold.