Move Over Mosque Controversy: New Housing Sales Numbers Point To Double Dip Recession

 

Never mind the Mosque controversy that’s currently taking up the right-of-center opinion media programming slate, there’s a new, and far more real story in which to go after the Obama administration. National Association of Realtors said earlier today that July’s sales fell by more than 27 percent — the largest monthly drop on records dating back to 1968. Almost immediately, Business reporters have called this a sure sign of a double-dip recession.

Writing for the Associated Press, Alan Zibel reports:

WASHINGTON — Sales of previously occupied homes plunged last month to the lowest level in 15 years, despite the lowest mortgage rates in decades and bargain prices in many areas.

July’s sales fell by more than 27 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.83 million, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday. It was the largest monthly drop on records dating back to 1968, and sharp declines were recorded in all regions of the country.

The housing report worried Wall Street, briefly pushing the Dow Jones industrial average below 10,000 .

The plunge in home sales also magnified fears about the broader economy.

“The housing market is undermining the already faltering wider economic recovery,” said Paul Dales, U.S. economist with Capital Economics. “With the increasingly inevitable double-dip in prices yet to come, things could yet get a lot worse.”

Fox News host Megyn Kelly opened her show with this news, and FBN’s Stuart Varney made clear that this was in fact evidence of the double dip recession.

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Colby Hall is the Founding Editor of Mediaite.com. He is also a Peabody Award-winning television producer of non-fiction narrative programming as well as a terrific dancer and preparer of grilled meats.