Again with the weather

The National Realtors Association continues to emphasize weather as an important factor in declining home sales (see Inman News story). The first thing NAR had to say in today's press release about an 11.3 percent year-over-year decline in March home sales: "Unusually bad winter weather in February curtailed home shopping..."

While it's true that the Midwest and Northeast experienced a pretty brutal cold snap in February (click on the map from the National Climatic Data Center), it was actually the sunny Western states that saw the most dramatic drop in March home sales -- 16.7 percent. Maybe people were worried about exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays?

In the Midwest, the 13.7 percent year-over-year decrease in March home sales oustripped the 11.3 percent national average. But the Midwest has plenty of other problems, like the demise of U.S. manufacturing. If weather is such a big deal, why did existing home sales in the chilly Northeast fall by only 5.1 percent?

NAR acknowledged that March home sales "may have been dampened further by a decrease in subprime lending volume," exposing the tip of a very large iceberg.

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