New Home Sales Flat Since Spring

New home sales declined slightly in October, but the real news today out of the Census Bureau may be that they’ve been largely stagnant since last spring.

The Census Bureau reported today that new home sales in October were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 368,000, a 0.3 percent decline from September’s newly revised figure of 369,000.

Those September figures were revised significantly downward from the original rate of 389,000 units reported last month, while July and August’s figures were revised slightly downward to 366,000 units for both months.

Taken together, that means new home sales are been virtually unchanged since last May, remaining within a tight window from 366,000 to 369,000 units that entire time, except for a brief drop to 360,000 in June.

Pace still well ahead of 2011

Although Census Bureau figures for new home construction are subject to wide margins of error and are frequently revised in subsequent months, the consistency of the seasonally adjusted figures over the past half year strongly suggest that a hoped-for recovery in new home construction has stalled out.

At the same time, the figures confirm that a significant increase in new home sales has occurred over the past year, with October’s figures representing a 17.2 percent annual gain over the Oct. 2011 rate of 314,000 units.

New home construction is considered a significant driver of the economy, not only because of the jobs it creates in construction and building supplies, but also because of the secondary purchases home buyers tend to make in areas such as furniture, appliances, lawn and garden equipment, and other items commonly bought to outfit a new home.

First published at: http://www.mortgageloan.com/new-home-sales-flat-spring-9304