Sales of homes in 39 states rose in the second quarter

In the United States, home sales finally rose in the second quarter in 39 states. This is one of the factors indicating that the housing market may be perking up a bit after the sub prime lending mess hit it hard.

Quarterly sales for the housing market overall rose 3.8%. This equates to a seasonally annual rate that is 4.76 million. Although the number is around 3% below the same quarter a year ago, the number is up from 4.58 million in the first quarter. The figures have proven to be a welcomed sign by economists who are now saying that the worst part of the housing recession is over and we have hit bottom and are finally starting to see an increase in sales. Even though they say that we’ve bottomed out, foreclosures are still expected to rise well into next year.

Alaska, Wyoming, California, Colorado and Michigan are still being hit pretty hard by falling housing prices and their sales have dropped by at the very least 6% each. However, in states such as Idaho, New York, Wisconsin, and Nebraska, sales have increased 20% or more.

Over the entire country, over 1/3 of the sales that were being reported were from foreclosures and other types of distressed sales in the second quarter.

Hopefully people will learn from all the mistakes they made leading up to the most recent housing crash. If people will learn not to ask for mortgages that they know they can’t afford and banks will learn that they aren’t going to be making money off the people who can’t afford the houses and to stop making out mortgages that are not only deceitful, but also stop “liar loans” then maybe we can avoid the same situation from happening again. Maybe.