New Home Sales Rise But Supply Jumps To Most Since Nov 2008

New home sales rose 1% in July but are well below the peak hit in January.

The Census Bureau New Residential Construction report add another data point suggesting the big rebound boom in housing is over.

This article was originally published by Mish Talk.

New Construction Details 

• Sales of new single‐family houses in July 2021 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 708,000.
• Sales are 1.0 percent above the revised June rate of 701,000.
• Sales are 27.2 percent below the July 2020 estimate of 972,000.
• The median sales price of new houses sold in July 2021 was $390,500. The average sales price was $446,000.
• The seasonally‐adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of July was 367,000. This represents a supply of 6.2 months at the current sales rate.

Note that sales are down 27.2% from a year ago. This is due to seasonal adjustments on steroids coupled with massive distortion in sales from Covid.

Supply in Months at Current Rate 

At the current rate of sales there is a healthy 6.2 months of supply.

New Homes For Sale By Stage of Construction

Optimistic Builders

There are 368,000 new home for sales. Of them 230,000 are under construction and 34,000 completed.

Although the number of completed home is low, the 230,000 under construction is the most since November of 2007.

The number of homes for sale not yet started is 104,000. That’s the most since June of 2006.

What can possibly go wrong?

Shortage of Homes?

Bear in mind the The NAR Claims There’s a Chronic 5.5 Million Shortage of Houses.

Amusingly, the NAR argued in 2007 that there was a shortage of houses. Clearly there wasn’t.