by Calculated Risk on 3/26/2013 02:56:00 PM

When the new home sales report was released for January, showing a large increase in the annualized sales rate, I cautioned not to read too much into that number. It was just one month of data, and January is seasonally the weakest month of the year with the largest positive seasonal adjustment.

Now that we have two months of data for 2013, one way to look at the growth rate is to use not seasonally adjusted (NSA) year-to-date data.

According to the Census Bureau, there have been 63 thousand new homes sold in 2013, up about 19% from the 53 thousand sold in January and February of 2012. That is a solid increase in sales. Note: For 2013, estimates are sales will increase to around 450 to 460 thousand, or an increase of around 22% to 25% on an annual basis from the 368 thousand in 2012.

As I mentioned last month, although there has been a large increase in the sales rate, sales are still near the lows for previous recessions. This suggest significant upside over the next few years (based on estimates of household formation and demographics, I expect sales to increase to 750 to 800 thousand over the next several years). Also housing is historically the best leading indicator for the economy, and this is one of the reasons I think The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.

And here is another update to the "distressing gap" graph that I first started posting over four years ago to show the emerging gap caused by distressed sales.  Now I'm looking for the gap to start to close over the next few years.

Click on graph for larger image.

The "distressing gap" graph shows existing home sales (left axis) and new home sales (right axis) through February 2013. This graph starts in 1994, but the relationship has been fairly steady back to the '60s.

Following the housing bubble and bust, the "distressing gap" appeared mostly because of distressed sales. The flood of distressed sales kept existing home sales elevated, and depressed new home sales since builders weren't able to compete with the low prices of all the foreclosed properties.

I don't expect much of an increase in existing home sales (distressed sales will slowly decline and be offset by more conventional sales). But I do expect this gap to close - mostly from an increase in new home sales.

Another way to look at this is a ratio of existing to new home sales.

This ratio was fairly stable from 1994 through 2006, and then the flood of distressed sales kept the number of existing home sales elevated and depressed new home sales. (Note: This ratio was fairly stable back to the early '70s, but I only have annual data for the earlier years).

In general the ratio has been trending down, and I expect this ratio to trend down over the next several years as the number of distressed sales declines and new home sales increase.

Note: Existing home sales are counted when transactions are closed, and new home sales are counted when contracts are signed. So the timing of sales is different.