You'll hear a lot about how new home sales leaped 7.9 percent in August, to 421,000 from the July figure of 390,000. However, the margin of error in the Census Bureau data is plus or minus 14.6 percent, which means there was virtually no change. In addition, sales in July were down 14.1 percent from the month before.
So regardless of the salesman's joy of rising numbers, factoring in the range of error in gathering the statistics means that sales were flat all summer. But the good news is that new home sales were up from a year ago. Or were they? The August figure of 421,000 is a preliminary estimate, and showed a rise from the 374,000 of August 2012. Sales for the first six months of 2013 were well over 400,000 monthly, before dropping to 390,000 in July. So the August number will be touted as a recovery, but considering it's an early estimate with a wide margin of error, new home sales may still be zero change.
The median sales prices of new houses sold in August was $254,600, according to the joint release by the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the average sales price was $318,900. Those are, of course, nationwide numbers. Regional and urban sales figures will differ.
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