Tuesday, March 25, 2014

New home sales now *also* down YoY


 - by New Deal democrat

This morning the Census Bureau reported that seasonally adjusted February new home sales were 440,000, which is -1.1% lower than last February's 445,000.

January's number was revised down by -13,000  to 455,000, and not only is no longer a record, but as revised was *also* down YoY by -3,000.

That means that the only two measures of housing which were not negative YoY in January were permits and, as revised, starts.  So far this month, only permits are YoY positive.  (Admittedly I regard permits as the best, most forward looking measure).  The last important series, pending home sales, will be reported Thursday, and I'll update all of my graphs then.

While I haven't won my bet with Bill McBride a/k/a Calculated Risk, how many of you, dear readers, believed that  by this time so many measures of the housing market would be negative YoY?  If I haven't specifically been proven correct on my -100,000 YoY forecast for permits or starts, I got the trend of the housing market at the beginning of this year correct.