No Happy Holidays For U.S. Housing

The U.S. economy isn't feeling the holiday cheer this year, as sluggish growth and the prolonged housing crisis fail to let up.

The rate of existing home sales plunged a record 8.6% in November, with falling prices faring no better, a real estate trade group said Tuesday.

The report is a blow to the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department, which have been acting aggressively to bring down mortgage rates and revive the U.S. housing market. Thus far, the effort has yielded mixed results at best, and the Census Bureau and realtors' figures are expected to reflect more of the same: declining sales.

Meanwhile, the National Association of Realtors said the median home price fell 13.2% on an annual basis, down for a fifth straight month to $181,300. It was the largest drop since the current data series began in 1968 and probably the largest since the Great Depression, said Lawrence Yun, the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.

The pace of sales fell to a 4.49-million-unit annual rate. Economists polled by Reuters were expecting home resales to set a 4.90-million pace. October's figure was revised downward to 4.91 million, from 4.98 million.

"The quickly deteriorating conditions in the job market, stock market and consumer confidence in October and November have knocked down home sales to another level," Yun said.

The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said its final index reading of confidence for December rose to 60.1, from November's 55.3. Don't get too excited, though: The report noted that, absent the gain due to unusually steep pre-holiday price discounts, the sentiment index would be virtually unchanged.