By John Galt
October 26, 2011 – 10:20 ET
The September new home sales report is out from the Commerce Department (click here for PDF version of the release) and as usual, the mainstream and Bubblemedia focuses on the seasonally adjusted annualized figures instead of the actual month over month change. The raw data, aka non-seasonally adjusted numbers show a July figure revised down to 27K from 28K, August revised down to 25K from 26K, and September’s initial figure of 25K. In other words unchanged and the most dismal summer new home selling season since records have been kept in 1963.
For example, the primary home selling season is considered April through September annually due to weather and construction factors. The non-seasonally adjusted totals for the last four years breaks down like this:
2008: 259,000
2009: 207,000
2010: 169,000
2011: 164,000
To give one some degree of comparison, the 1981 April to September new home sales for the same season (NSA) totaled 225,000 during that recessionary period of high inflation and 17%+ interest rates. Thus ignore the mainstream again and focus on the cumulative damage that has been done to the real estate markets across the board in the U.S. as the Great Recession Depression (part 2) continues.
Chart 1. New Home Sales Total (NSA)
Chart 2. New Home Sales by Price, Units under $299,000 (NSA)
Chart 3. New Home Sales by Price, Unites over $300,000 (NSA)
Recent Comments