July New Home Sales Soar to 12.4% Month-over-Month, Surprises Forecast

Jon Economy, Market Commentary, Real Estate

This morning’s release of the July New Home Sales from the Census Bureau came in at 654K, up 12.4% month-over-month from a revised 582K in June. Seasonally adjusted estimates for April and May were revised. The Investing.com forecast was for 580K.
Here is the opening from the report:
Sales of new single-family houses in July 2016 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 654,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the US Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 12.4 percent (12.7%)* above the revised June rate of 582,000 and is 31.3 percent (19.9%) above the July 2015 estimate of 498,000.
The median sales price of new houses sold in July 2016 was $294,600; the average sales price was $355,800. The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of July was 233,000. This represents a supply of 4.3 months at the current sales rate. [Full Report]

This post was published at FinancialSense on 08/23/2016.