Obsolete Certainty

The Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development today released New Residential Home Sales survey data for November 2009. The survey is primarily based on a sample of houses selected from building permits. Since a “sale” is defined as a deposit taken or sales agreement signed, this can occur prior to a permit being issued. Changes in sales price data reflect changes in the distribution of houses by region, size, etc., as well as changes in the prices of houses with identical characteristics. It takes four months to establish a trend of new home purchases In last month's release, which reported on October survey data, sales of new single family houses rose 6.2% to a rate of 430,000 annual transactions, much better than the market's expectation for 410…(read more)