New Home Sales Disappoint in December, Fall 2.2% to 307K
Data from the Commerce Department Thursday showed new home sales last month fell from November, a divergence from economists who were looking for a month-over-month rise.
The annually-adjusted rate for the sale of recently-built homes fell 7,000 from a downwardly-revised reading of 314,000 in November to 307,000 in December. New home sales were down 2.2 percent; the Street had been expecting a 1.9 percent rise from November.
New home sales totaled 302,000 during 2011, the worst year for the metric since the Department started tracking in the 1960's.
The median sales price for these new homes moved lower to $210,300 in December.
Data on Wednesday showed pending home sales during December fell 3.5 percent from November.
Homebuilders will receive a reading on the S&P/CaseShiller Home Price Index for November on Tuesday, January 31st. Economists are currently expecting a 0.4 percent decline from the 140.3 posted in October.
As measured by the SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (NYSE: XHB), homebuilding stocks are lower Thursday morning. The ETF is currently down 1.3 percent.
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The annually-adjusted rate for the sale of recently-built homes fell 7,000 from a downwardly-revised reading of 314,000 in November to 307,000 in December. New home sales were down 2.2 percent; the Street had been expecting a 1.9 percent rise from November.
New home sales totaled 302,000 during 2011, the worst year for the metric since the Department started tracking in the 1960's.
The median sales price for these new homes moved lower to $210,300 in December.
Data on Wednesday showed pending home sales during December fell 3.5 percent from November.
Homebuilders will receive a reading on the S&P/CaseShiller Home Price Index for November on Tuesday, January 31st. Economists are currently expecting a 0.4 percent decline from the 140.3 posted in October.
As measured by the SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (NYSE: XHB), homebuilding stocks are lower Thursday morning. The ETF is currently down 1.3 percent.
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Story is Flawed
Victor Jeremiah on Jan 26, 2012 06:15 PMMark as Spam
The problem with this story is that it assumes that the U.S. population has not changed since 1963, when record-keeping began for new home sales. New home sales in 2011 were down 44% from 1963, but the decline widens to 67% after the data is adjusted for population. Here's what the data looks like when it's adjusted it for new homes sales per million Americans: http://www.cynicaltimes.org/articles/new-home-sales-fell-to-record-low-in-2011/