Summary Box: Despite tax credits and cheap mortgage rates, year is tough one for housing

Summary Box: Housing poised for weak end to year

WEAK HOME SALES: This year’s home sales are shaping up to be as dismal as last year, despite cheap home prices and mortgage rates that have fallen to the lowest levels in decades.

SLOW SUMMER: Sales of previously occupied homes rose 7.6 percent last month from July. That wasn’t enough to keep this summer from being the slowest for home sales in more than a decade.

SALES SLUGGISH: Most experts expect roughly 5 million homes to be sold through the entire year. That would be in line with last year’s totals and just above sales for 2008, the worst since 1997.