The Commerce Department stats for new home sales during April have been released, and are showing a slight uptick in activity - 3.3% -- although they're still down by 42% from April of 2007 (see previous post about the latest numbers from the Case-Shiller index). From a New York Times story:
A government report released Tuesday showed that sales of new single-family homes rose 3.3 percent in April but were down 42 percent from a year ago...
sales of newly constructed single-family homes rose 3.3 percent in April to a 526,000 annual rate but they were down 42 percent from a year ago, which was the largest year-over-year drop in nearly 27 years, government data on Tuesday showed.
The Commerce Department estimate showed the first increase in new home sales since October, but the increase came after a big downward revision to the previous month.
Economists polled by Reuters were expecting new home sales to slip to a rate of 520,000. The department revised down its March estimate to a rate of 509,000 from 526,000, or a 11.0 percent decrease from a first-reported 8.5 percent decline.
The inventory of homes available for sale in April fell 2.4 percent to 456,000, which was the 12th straight monthly decline. The April sales pace put the supply of homes available for sale at 10.6 month’s worth.
As always, expect revisions to this government data next month, as the Commerce Department polls less than 5% of permit-issuing places nationally and then calls builders to see if the homes they've built have sold.
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