We are seeing a slower pace of sales than we saw during July 1990 and slower than July 1992. We have seen 543,000 units sold during the past 12 months. If this rear looking number is able to be used to project forward then we should hit the values recorded during either 1990 or 1992. Could it take us another 20 years to return to the levels recorded during the Summer of 2005?

Every month we receive reports on the New Home Construction levels, new home sales, and the existing home sales. "Everyone" focuses on the new home average sales price. Some people comment on the Annual Units sold projection. What is lost in the discussion is the number of actual units sold during the current month and during the past twelve months. We have seen improvement in the number of new homes constructed over the past few years. Improvement is relative. We saw the lowest levels of new home construction during the aftermath of the Housing Crash.

We have seen the new home construction improve to levels we have last seen during 1983 and 1992. We are nowhere near the peak levels seen during the Summers of 2005, 2006, or even 2007.  While we have seen a recovery in the new home sales data, we saw levels comparable to 1992 during April and Mayof this year. June was not much different.The June Sales information revealed that while they were better than June 1992 that they were still weaker than July 1994 and 1995. We were on track for selling less than half a million new homes for the entire year.

What was recorded for July New Home Sales? What was reported?

Right now there is no way we will hit 654,000 homes sold. If we can use Prior data to project forward we may see levels between 1990 and 1992. Last month it was projected tat we could see sales trending with 2008 or 1990. Now we are trending much better than 2008. The problem is that the trend still places us at or below 600,000 units - not the 654,000 that is being reported elsewhere

We Have sold 50,000 less homes than 1990 and 25,000 fewer than 1992. If we stay on track with the trajectory for 1992 we could end up between 535,000 and 583,000 units sold. If we follow the trend with 1990 we could fall short of 500,000 units and see only 485,000 units sold - comparable to 2008.

This was a much stronger report than the one we saw last year. Unfortunately, this is still poor by historic standards.

Remarkable Date - Lots to say about the New Data and the Old Data. The Data is a constantly moving target.  The Average sales price for April was revised upward from $378,900 to 380,000. The problem is that the average sales prices foe May and June were revised downward. May was revised down from $351,400 to 349,3000 and June was revised from $358,200 to 353,500. WE also saw the units sold in April revised down from 56,000 units to 55,000 units, the units in May revised down from 54,000 to 53,000 and the June units revised up from 54,000 to 55,000. The Annual units sold data was revised down from 592,000 units  to 582,000 for the month of June. How is it that they are reporting 654,000 seasonally adjusted annual units this month?

The Average Sales Price For July was a Record High - The Number of Units Sold, Not So Much. If you look at the graph as the beginning of this article you will see a sizable jump between July of last year and July of this year. There was a jump from 43,000 units to 57,000 units. This is amazing. What is also amazing is that this pace of July New Homes Sold is slower than what we saw between July 1994 and July 2007 for the month of July.