Low Hanging Fruit

Seth Godin gives some good advice for retailers and the rest of us.

Existing Home Sales Dip 16% in May

Sales of existing homes in May fell 15.9% from the same month last year to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 4.99 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors. Even though about a third of the sales last month were short sales that reflected foreclosures or distressed properties, there were some signs of shallowing distress. The difference between last year's sales rate and this year's has dropped for four consecutive months, from 23% in February to just under 16% last month.And the existing sales to date have also closed ground, from running 30.3% behind in February to just 19.1% in May, with 1.882 million units sold.
However, the slump still has a ways to go before bottoming out, and warmer weather did not bring any upswing; the May sales rate lags about 1% behind February's pace.
May's existing home median sales price was $208,600, down 6.3% from the same month in 2007. At the present sales pace, there is a 10.2-month unsold inventory.

Signs of the Times

Residents of St. Paul, MN are being asked to limit wastewater discharges from dishwashers and washing machines because a part of the city's sewer system has collapsed.

And Pennsylvania is facing a $20 billion shortfall affecting its drinking water and waste water systems. (Courtesy US Water News.)

Ammonite lav sink

Way cool. Via materialicious.

May New Home Sales Down 40%

Sales of new single family homes fell 40.3% in May from the same month last year to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 512,000 units, according to the Census Bureau. Through the first five months of 2008, some 236,000 new single family homes have been sold, down 37.1% from the same period of 2007.
Median sales price of a new home in May was $231,000, down 5.7% from the same month last year. At current sales rates, builders have 10.9 months of unsold inventory; in May 2007 they had 7.8 months' worth.

Appliance Golf

Reuters reports on the "sport" of appliance golf, seen here, which consists of bashing refrigerators, washers and the like with sledgehammers.

S&P Home Price Index Down 15% in April

Through April of 2008, the Case-Shiller Composite-20 Home Price Index is showing a 15.3% decline in single family home prices from prices a year ago. The measure from Standard & Poor's finds that 12 MSA's around the country have now shown home price declines for eight consecutive months. Las Vegas and Miami are the two weakest markets; home prices have dipped nearly 27% in each.

June Consumer Confidence Hits New Lows

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index dropped to just 50.4 (1985 = 100) in June, less than half of what it was in June of 2007. The Expectations Index portion of the survey slipped all the way to 41.0.
Said Lynn Franco, Director of the Board's Consumer Research Center: "This month's Consumer Confidence Index is the fifth lowest reading ever. Consumers' assessment of present-day conditions continues to grow more negative and suggests the economy remains stuck in low gear. Looking ahead, consumers' economic outlook is so bleak that the Expectations Index has reached a new all-time low. Perhaps the silver lining to this otherwise dismal report is that Consumer Confidence may be nearing a bottom."
Just 8.8% think business conditions will improve over the next six months, while 33.9% think they will grow worse. Just 12.3% expect their incomes to increase over that span.

Ed Pell Discusses the History of Kitchens

With lovely and charming Elaine Mikk of Cabinet Discounters on her radio show Home Innovations, now marking its tenth anniversary. Give a listen.

Two Bear Stearns Managers Arrested

Reuters reports the Feds nabbed them this morning for their roles in the mortgage crisis.

Update: The Wall Street Journal posts a copy of the indictment. Pages 7-8 have the meat:

Starting at least by March 2007, CIOFFI, TANNIN and others believed that the Funds were in grave condition and at risk of collapse. Rather than disclosing the true state of the Funds to investors and lenders, thus allowing an orderly wind-down of the Funds, CIOFFI and TANNIN agreed to make misrepresentations in the ultimately futile hope that the Funds' bleak prospects would change and that their incomes and reputations would remain intact.
On June 9, 2007, when the Funds' collapse was imminent, CIOFFI stated that, "[ilf I can't [turn the Funds around] I've effectively washed a 30 year career down the drain."
25. In executing their scheme, as detailed below, CIOFFI and TANNIN, together with others, misrepresented or omitted material facts in communications with investors and lenders about a variety of topics, including the financial prospects of the Funds, their opinions regarding the financial prospects of the Funds, their personal investments in the Funds, the Funds' investor redemption requests, the Funds' liquidity picture, and the Funds' exposure to the subprime mortgage market.

Second Update: Reuters says almost 300 other people have also been arrested.

Appliance Sales Flat For Major Dealers in 2007

Twice Magazine's Top 100 Appliance Retailers Report finds that white goods sales for those companies dipped just 0.3% in 2007 from 2006 to $25.03 billion.
Says the report,

"Smaller independent dealers regained lost ground, the report shows, supporting claims of market share gains by the major buying groups.
Also weathering the storm were retailers that cater to the carriage trade, operate outside the hardest-hit real estate markets, or have limited exposure to the builder channel."

Sears led the group with $8.3 billion in major appliance sales, down 7.3% from 2006.

May Starts Plummet 32%

May brought no relief to builders, as housing starts plummeted to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of just 969,000 units, according to the Census Bureau, 32.1% below the pace for May of 2007. Single family starts crashed to just a 674,000-start rate, down 41.2% from May, 2007 levels. Those figures are the lowest posted in 17 years.
Through five months of 2008, just under 412,000 homes have started, down 30.6% from the same period of 2007. Slightly more than 289,000 single family homes have been started over that span, down 40.1% below the first five months last year.
Permit numbers were also anemic. Building permits were issued at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of just 969,000 units in May, down 36.3% from the same month last year, while single family permits were issued at a rate of 623,000 units, down 41.4%.