I’ll take the contrary side here and suggest the falling sales numbers are due to **lower inventory,** not slack demand. There just aren’t any reasonably-priced houses to buy!
While I agree that they’ve (once again!) pulled lots of buyers forward, **at this point in time** it appears that there is enough demand out there for a lot more supply. Yes, prices would be lower, but that’s exactly what SHOULD happen after we’ve experienced the **artificial** run-up in the 2001-2006 period. We have still not wrung out all the artificial price gains, and we will not get out of this recession until we do.
