by Mish Shedlock, The Maven:
Revision Mirage
The Census Bureau’s New Residential Sales Report shows sales rose 1.3% in November to a Seasonally-Adjusted-Annualized-Rate (SAAR) of 719,000 units but it’s a revision mirage.
Last month the report showed 733,000 sales but the Census Department revised October down to 710,000 units.
The Econoday consensus was a slight gain to 735,000 units so this was a bad two-month miss.
Nonetheless, figures over 700,000 are at the top end of the sales range since 2007.
Long Term Trends
Bulls will point out huge year-over-year advances. But that is against dismal October and November sales of 557,000 units and 615,000 units respectively.
Another easy year-over-year-comparison is coming up. December 2018 had 546,000 sales.
The long-term picture though still shows a depressed setup, especially in light of population growth.
New Home Sales by Region – Seasonally Adjusted
The Northeast had a whopping 52.5% increase in sales on a seasonally-adjusted basis. But a closer look at the numbers show it’s meaningless.
New Home Sales by Region – Unadjusted
On an unadjusted basis, people bought 55K homes in July, 57K home in August, 56K in September, 55K in October, and 52K in November.
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