Builder Confidence Flags, Housing Double Dip

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jun 15, 9:36PM EDT · Published Jun 15, 12:54PM EDT

The double dip in housing has caught up to another important player. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index dropped sharply in June.

Recently, mortgage application dropped another week-the fifth in a row. The federal tax credit for new and existing home buyers has expired and has not been extended. High unemployment continues to weigh on the market. RealtyTrac says that foreclosures moved above 300,000 for the 15th month in a row.

In related news which indicates that consumers are saving and not buying a single thing, retail sales collapsed last month. People are squirreling money in mattresses or holes in the ground.The National Association of Home Builders reported that its index for June fell to 17 in June, down an extraordinary five points in just 30 days. NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe said

“As today’s HMI data shows, builders still remain very cautious and are aware that several factors could impede the nascent housing recovery, including serious problems in obtaining financing for the production of housing, faulty appraisal practices and competition from short sales and foreclosed properties.”

At least it’s summer.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.