US new home sales for April 2019
New home sales for the month of April in the US came in around expectations at 673K vs 675K estimate.
- Prior month revised higher to 723K from 692K previously reported
- Because of the large upward revision the month on month fell -6.9% versus a 8.1% gain in March
- Months supply comes in at 5.9 minus versus 5.6 months last month
- median sale price $342,200, up 8.8% from April 2018. This is the highest since December 2017
- Northeast +11.5%
- Midwest -7.4%
- South -7.3%
- West -8.3%
- 20% of new homes sold enable cost more than 500,000, up from 16% in the prior month
Although the sales pace was much lower than the revised prior month, the March number was the highest since October 2007. Lower rates and low unemployment are helping the trend in housing.
Other points:
- Most of the sales decline came in homes price below 300,000 suggesting supply may be a problem
- the number of properties sold for which construction has not yet started rose to the highest level since 2017. Good news
- The number of completed homes on the market increased to the most since 2010. Not such good news
- new home purchases account for about 10% of the market. The existing home sales are the vast majority of home sales (90%).
