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New Home Sales dip, but…
New Home Sales (June 20120)
- Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate 350,000.
- This is the lowest level in five months.
- Down 8.4% since May 2012, but up 15.1% since June 2011
- Previous 2mo revised up 13k and 15k respectively
- Median new home sale price: $232,600 (vs. $189,400 median existing home price)
- Full report on New Home Sales
- Here’s some additional perspective:
New home sales always volatile and often revised.350K vs. med 372K but revised higher by 13K and 15K in past two months.No biggie.
— Mike Jackson (@bondscoop) July 25, 2012
Vs year ago, new home sales rose faster than construction. Result: new home inventory -13%, to 4.9mo supply.
— Jed Kolko (@JedKolko) July 25, 2012
Context on new home sales: June reading is lower than any in the last 4 months and better than each of the 21 months before than. #wsj
— Nick Timiraos (@NickTimiraos) July 25, 2012
MBA Mortgage Applications (week ended 7/20)
- Purchase Index, Week/Week -3.0%
- Refinance Index, Week/Week 2.0%
- Composite Index, Week/Week 0.9%
The Purchase Index tends to bounce around and has shown no strong trend. However, combined with the lower New Home Sales, this gives pause to the notion that the housing sector is in recovery.
The Fed
It seems to be clear that the Fed, because of the dismal state of GDP and jobs, will intervene with some sort of QE. The fact is that fiscal policy and monetary policy have become hopelessly entangled. It should not be the case that Congress and the Administration must appeal to rich Uncle Fed to fix things. Here’s a full QE3 briefing.
Source:
