by Calculated Risk on 7/27/2006 10:04:00 AM

UPDATE: Dr. Hamilton has an excellent post on Seasonal adjustment and new home sales.

According to the Census Bureau report, New Home Sales in June were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.131 million. Sales for May were revised down to 1.166 million.


Click on Graph for larger image.

Sales of new one-family houses in June 2006 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,131,000 ... This is 3.0 percent below the revised May rate of 1,166,000 and is 11.1 percent below the June 2005 estimate of 1,272,000.
The Not Seasonally Adjusted monthly rate was 103,000 New Homes sold. There were 115,000 New Homes sold in June 2005.

On a year over year basis, June 2006 sales were 10.4% lower than June 2005. Also, June '06 sales were slightly below June 2004 (105,000) and June 2003 (107,000) sales.


The median and average sales prices were down slightly. Caution should be used when analyzing monthly price changes since prices are heavily revised.

The median sales price of new houses sold in June 2006 was $231,300; the average sales price was $290,600.


The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of June was 566,000. This represents a supply of 6.1 months at the current sales rate.

The 566,000 units of inventory is another record for new houses for sale.

On a months of supply basis, inventory is above the level of recent years.

This report appears stronger than expected based on recent reports from home builders, but the report is slightly weaker than expected by Wall Street estimates.

I suppose this shows that the housing slowdown is orderly - so far.