Housing Sector Gets Boost With Jump In New Home Sales

The outlook for the housing sector just got a boost from a sharp jump in new home sales, up 10.8 percent to a 544,000 annualized rate that is 44,000 over the Econoday consensus and 24,000 over the high estimate. The gain, however, may have been boosted by discounting as the median price slipped 2.7 percent to $288,900 for a year-on-year rate of minus 4.3 percent.

With builders slow to bring new homes to market, low supply remains a central factor holding back sales. Supply did rise 6,000 in the month to 237,000 but supply relative to sales fell back to 5.2 months from 5.6 months. A reading of 6.0 months is considered to be the balance point between supply and demand.

Regional data show a 32 percent sales surge in the Midwest where the year-on-year rate of 39 percent is the strongest. Sales in the West and Northeast both rose 21 percent in the month with the year-on-year rate in the West, which is a key region for new housing, up 22 percent while the Northeast, which is a very small region in this report, down 6.5 percent on the year. The South, which is the largest region, shows a fractional gain in the month and no change on the year.

For full year 2015, new home sales rose 14.7 percent to 501,000 from 437,000 in 2014. Sales of new homes have been noticeably higher than prices, suggesting that prices have room to accelerate. This report follows special strength in existing home sales with both perhaps benefiting from December's warm weather but with both pointing nevertheless to new momentum for 2016.

Recent History Of This Indicator:
Samples are small and monthly data often swing wildly as new home sales rose 4.3 percent in November to nearly reverse a 6.3 percent plunge in October. At a consensus 500,000 annualized rate, Econoday forecasters see a less volatile 2.0 percent gain for December sales. Supply of new homes has been tight but hasn't been helping prices much, at least for this report where the year-on-year gain was only 0.8 percent in November. Note that month-to-month revisions in this series can be extreme.