U.S. New Home Sales Increase Further in February
by:Tom Moeller
|in:Economy in Brief
Summary
- Home sales rise for third straight month.
- Sales changes remain mixed regionally.
- Median sales price gain fails to recoup earlier decline.
New single-family home sales during February rose 1.1% (-19.0% y/y) to 640,000 (SAAR) after increasing 1.8% in January to 633,000, revised from 670,000. December sales were revised to 622,000 from 625,000. Despite three consecutive months of gain, sales remained 38.2% below the August 2020 peak. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected sales of 646,000 new homes during last month.
February’s gain in new home sales reflected varied movement amongst the regions of the country. In the West, sales rose 8.1% (-33.2% y/y) to 133,000 after falling 9.6% in January. This increase was accompanied by a 3.0% gain (-8.8% y/y) in sales in the South to 415,000 following a 4.4% rise in January. Offsetting these gains, new home sales in the Northeast collapsed 40.0% (-55.3% y/y) to 21,000 after rising 20.7% in January. Also declining last month, new home sales in the Midwest fell 1.4% (-20.2% y/y) to 71,000 which reversed a 1.4% January increase to 72,000.
The median price of a new home rose 2.7% last month (2.5% y/y) to $438,200 after falling 9.2% in January. The price has fallen 11.8% since its October peak of $496,800. The average sales price of a new home improved 3.9% (-4.5% y/y) to $498,700 following a 15.4% January decline. These sales price data are not seasonally adjusted.
The number of unsold new homes on the market fell 0.7% in February (+10.1% y/y) to a seasonally adjusted 436,000 units, up from a low of 142,000 in July 2012. The seasonally adjusted months' supply of new homes for sale eased minimally m/m to 8.2 months. They remained down from a high of 10.1 months in September, but above its low of 3.3 months in August 2020. The median number of months a new home stayed on the market rose to 2.5 from 2.3 months in January. That remained up from the record low of 1.5 months in both September & October of last year, down from a high of 5.1 in March 2021. These data date back to January 1975.
New home sales activity and prices are available in Haver's USECON database. The consensus expectation figure from Action Economics is available in the AS1REPNA database.
Tom Moeller
AuthorMore in Author Profile »Prior to joining Haver Analytics in 2000, Mr. Moeller worked as the Economist at Chancellor Capital Management from 1985 to 1999. There, he developed comprehensive economic forecasts and interpreted economic data for equity and fixed income portfolio managers. Also at Chancellor, Mr. Moeller worked as an equity analyst and was responsible for researching and rating companies in the economically sensitive automobile and housing industries for investment in Chancellor’s equity portfolio. Prior to joining Chancellor, Mr. Moeller was an Economist at Citibank from 1979 to 1984. He also analyzed pricing behavior in the metals industry for the Council on Wage and Price Stability in Washington, D.C. In 1999, Mr. Moeller received the award for most accurate forecast from the Forecasters' Club of New York. From 1990 to 1992 he was President of the New York Association for Business Economists. Mr. Moeller earned an M.B.A. in Finance from Fordham University, where he graduated in 1987. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from George Washington University.
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