New homes sales were supposed to be up slightly in February, but sales actually fell for the month, according to the Census Bureau’s New Residential Sales report…(Census Bureau)
- M-O-M: Sales of new single‐family houses in February fell 2.0% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 772,000.
- Y-O-Y: New home sales were unfortunately also down 6.2% when compared to the same time one year ago.
NOTE: Economists had projected a 1.1% increase month-over-month.
Regionally, despite a 1.7% month-over-month decline, the South continues to lead the way with a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 550,000 new home sales in February…
- The West was number two with a rate of 167,000 homes (-13.0%) followed by the Midwest at 109,000 (+6.3%) and the Northeast was the most improved with a 59.3% jump from January to 47,000 in February.
PRICES: The median sales price in February was $400,600 and the average sales price was $511,000.
INVENTORY: The seasonally‐adjusted estimate of new houses for sale was up slightly to 407,000(+1k) which represents a longer supply of 6.3 months at the current sales rate at the end of February, up from 6.1 months in January.
REMINDER: Zonda Economics Pending New Home Sales Index fell 1.1% in February.
This decline shouldn’t be all that surprising when you look at the continuing issue developers are having in finishing homes. If you can’t get new homes to market it’s hard to keep up sales of new homes.