There was some good news in this disappointing New Home Sales Report for the month of April. We are still recovering from the new construction crash and hangover of 2006-2010. We have been seeing regular improvement to the new construction starts, under construction, and completions data. This column projected a low value of 58,000 units sold. We were lower than that. This column projected a low sales price of $388,000. We were below that. The good news is that we are finally tracking better than we were for current year units sold than we did during 1983 and 1992. That is good news. The bad news is that we are now tracking slower than we were during 1985. The authors of the report feel that we are heading toward an annual rate of 569,000 units - this column disagrees.

New Home Sales relatively steady. The April new home sales were virtually identical to April of 2016.This level is higher than the April levels of 2007 through 2014. It is also higher than April of 1992 - a benchmark year for this data.

Average Sales Price Lower than March 2017, April 2016, better than April 2015. This is possibly a result of an "over-supply" of new homes. The Inventory levels are at near the all-time high. Too much supply and not enough demand means that prices should fall.The combined line and histogram graph shows that the average sales price, as well as the units sold, can retrace prior levels.

Rolling year data - Slower than 1985. The rolling year data is very telling in that this April we had less than half the sales that were recorded for the rolling year ending April of 2006. Sales were slower than the rolling year ending April 1985 and slower than the rolling year ending  April 2008. These are important years to recognize while we discuss the current year data. We are doing better than we have since 2009.

Current Year Data - Better than 2016, Comparable to 1992, Better than 1983. The data with which we have been tracking for new home sales have been 1983 and 1992. We lost so many years of growth during the recession.  We were at 494,000 Rolling Year (RY units during April 1983 - we ended up selling 622,000 homes. We were at a level of 548,000 RY sales during April 1992 - we sold 608,000 by the end of that year, We sold 635,000 RY units as of April 1985 and sold 688,000 units by year end. Could we be heading to a value of 625,000 to 635,000 units? Possibly. The person who is projecting 569,000 units sold for the next year, compared to 642,000 for last month, must have been having a really bad day - we have a better chance of hitting 669,000 units sold than 569,000 units sold.  How ever you look at it, we are doing better than last year and that means we should end better than last year - which is what every builder wants to do. How ever you look at it, we are doing better than last year and that means we should end better than last year - which is what every builder wants to do.

The Revisions are Mixed. The Average Sales prices for February and March were revised downward.The monthly units sold for February and March were revised higher than last reported, and this helped boos the seasonally adjusted annual rates of sales.  The number of units for sales for February and March were downwardly revised.

One month does not make a year. The data that was reported adds to prior solid reports. We are still at historically ;low levels of new home units sold and historically high levels of average sales price. Are high prices slowing the market? Possibly. Are people fleeing from new homes and buying existing homes? we will see later this week.

It's the economy.