Fannie Mae Downgrades Housing Outlook. Again.

Many points about these and other aspects of housing market data: ``The current state of the housing market remains downbeat. Sales of existing homes hit the lowest point in seven months in May and new home sales dipped again after two straight months of growth. One bright spot mentioned in the report was a surge of 8.2 percent in pending home sales in May. However, as we reported here last week, the National Association of Realtors blamed cancellation of many of those contracts, possibly due to financing difficulties, for the further drop in sales of existing homes in June. Another positive is the share of home sales attributable to distressed sales which means less downwardly distorting pressure on home prices from the distressed sale discounts. Consequently median home prices in non-distressed have begun to rise. Fannie Mae economists view this as a seasonal phenomenon, however, and project further deterioration of home prices, perhaps to new lows, when the summer market ends.''