Why Plummeting Home Sales Matter

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published

By Max Fisher of The Atlantic Wire

U.S. pending home sales, home construction, and mortgage applications all declined significantly in May, according to newly released statistics. While the drop was expected due to an expiring federal tax-credit for home buyers, it fell at twice the expected rate of 15 percent, meaning that sales decreased by 30 percent in a single month. This is especially unusual because May is typically considered high season for home buying. The drop brings the number of pending home sales to the lowest since it was first recorded in 2001. It is also the largest percentage decline in home sales since 1963. Because home sales are a forward-looking indicator, unlike job growth which is a lagging indicator, this could have serious consequences for long-term economic growth.

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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
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.

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