Home sales suffer serious blow in July

Existing home sales got knocked out yesterday, plummeting a record 27 percent in July from the previous month, according to the National Association of Realtors. Purchases dropped to an annual pace of 3.83 million homes, the lowest rate since 1999. Many blame the end of a government tax credit as the reason for the poor home sales.

The market’s next indicator will be new home sales numbers for July, which are slated to be released today at 10 a.m. EDT. Behrooz Shahidi, a licensed real estate agent and mortgage lender in New Jersey personally saw sales take a dip in July and carry-out so far through August. Wall Street and finance reporter for The New York Times, Louise Story, says the new home sales report will bear out what Shahidi saw, and will be down a lot.