New Home Sales

Another set of ugly economic data to add to the earlier Case Shiller miss: the Richmond Fed officially contracted despite expectations of a rise from 3 to 5, dropping to -1. This means that the recent rebound from negative to positive and back to negative is indicative there is something far more broken with the economy than just a transitory soft patch. New home sales also deteriorated dropping from 315K to 312K, on expectations of a rebound to 320K. The median sales price was $235,200, and the average $269,000, on 6.3 months of supply. As Joseph Brusuelas of Bloomberg said, "Nothing in data suggests any turnaround." Yet the irony is that the end consumer: the entity that is getting pounded daily by this administration and the oligarchy, just became more confident, with the number beating consensus of 56 and printing at 59.5... on Hopium! Yes, the current conditions declined from 36.6 to 35.7, but at least American have managed to revert to their standard optimistic outlook, and the six month outlook surged from 71.6 to 75.4. Hilarious. Nonetheless unlike before when this goalseeked data point would have been enough to set off a massive buying spree by the HFT algos, today it is insufficient, and following the relentless barrage of bad economic data ES just took out overnight lows.

After yesterday's economic data drought, today brings the flood as we get new home sales and Case-Shiller prices, consumer confidence and the Richmond Fed index. We also get a small POMO as part of QE Lite and also two bill and one note auctions, sucking a combined $73 billion in capital out of the market.

Another slow day on the economic docket, with just C-grade indicators like Initial Claims and New Home sales due, which means that more gossip, innuendo, and outright lies out of Europe and Greece will determine the direction of the EURUSD, and thus the Russell 2000, better known as the US economy.

New home sales and speeches from several Fed officials. Even with the debt ceiling breached, and retirement funds tapped, it does not prevent the Treasury from issuing new bonds: $35 billion in 2 Years to be auctioned off at 1 pm. But never fear: Brian Sack will pump another $5-7 billion in our daily POMO.

According to the census department, new home sales printed at 300,000 in March (annualized; actual number sold was a whopping 29,000, of which 59% were not even built yet), a modest beat of  expectations of 280,000. The February number was revised from 250K to 270K. Therefore this was a 11.1% increase from what were virtually record lows. Refuting the better than expected headline, the underlying data was not too pretty: "The median sales price of new houses sold in March 2011 was $213,800; the average sales price was $246,800. The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of March was 183,000. This represents a supply of 7.3 months at the current sales rate" compared to 8.2 months in February. Additionally there was 1,000 or less house sold between $400,000 and $499.999, 1,000 or less houses sold between $500,000 and $749,000 and (Z) or less than 500 units sold under $750,000. And the kicker: the number of houses for sale at the end of March, 182,000 was the lowest since 1967. Welcome to the (recoveryless) recovery.

New home sales expected to rebound from record lows. Dallas Fed at 10:30 should confirm the Q2 economic contraction (expect Goldman to downgrade Q2 GDP if Dallas Fed comes under 10). After a one day absence, POMO is back, though today all Primary Dealer proceeds will likely go to fund margin calls.

...Just the wrong kind of record. At just 250,000, this was the lowest annualized new home sales number ever. So on one hand you have a TV clown tell you the housing market bottomed in August 2008, on the other you have a pathological tax cheat Welcoming all to the Recovery, and on the mutated third hand (thank you Fukushima), reality continues to indicate that the biggest depression in history persists without abating.

While the quant funds are desperately seeking modelers for a "deranged middle east dictator" algo, the US economy continues to prolapse. From the release: "Sales of new single-family houses in January 2011 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 284,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 12.6 percent (±11.2%) below the revised December rate of 325,000 and is 18.6 percent (±15.4%) below the January 2010 estimate of 349,000. The median sales price of new houses sold in January 2011 was $230,600; the  average sales price was $260,300. The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of January was 188,000. This represents a supply of 7.9 months at the current sales rate." Less than 500 homes (Z) sold in the over $750,000. And the stunner: only 19k non-annualized homes were sold. The lowest monthly total ever. (and as JT Smith points out, of the 19K, 53% were vacant lots or under construction).

New home sales continue to bounce along the bottom, with the November number coming in at 290K, 10K below expectations. This number will likely be revised lower next month, just like the October number was which ended up being not 283K but 275K, the lowest in pretty much forever. Months supply came at 8.2, a decline from the 8.8 in October. The news is sufficiently bad for the robots to push stocks higher.

US consumers are confident that their imminent bail out of an austere Europe will boost their living conditions, as austerity is now certain to never come to the US, thanks to the "wealth effect or bust" mandate of the Federal Reserve. Confidence came at 71.6 on expectations of 69.5. Since this number is a catch 22 which follows the respondents response to the stock market ramp it is nothing but a coincident indicator to stocks. Yet an actually relevant economic number, new home sales, came at 283k, on expectations of 312k and compared to the previous print of 308k. This was a 8.1% decline compared to expectations of a rise of 1.6%. The mood of the manic depressive market is now spilling over to virtually every economic category.

The earlier post citing Rosenberg's claim that there were no new homes sales in July in the $750,000+ bucket has generated quite a controversy. It appears some are stuck up on the Census Bureau definition's of footnote Z (Table 2 of the linked excel sheet) which is the designator for home sales for June and July, defined loosely as "Less than 500 units or less than 0.5 percent." Since this is an open ended range, and could indicate 0 just as easily as 500, we leave it up to our readers' imagination to draw their conclusion which end of the range is correct. However, what is without question, is that as of July, the combined proportion of new homes sold in the over $400,000 range, is the lowest it has been in a year. For the first time since July 2009, the houses costing $399,999 or under as a percentage of total has crossed 90%. And like the claim that the quality of the New York Times journalists is the best in the world, there is just no debating that (unless of course one wishes to brand all the data emanating from within the bowels of the government's data machine as questionable at best).

1.4 million homes need to be taken off the market for at least 5 more years to resolve housing's near term oversupply.

First existing, now new home sales: 276K (yes a record low) on expectations of 330K, and a revised prior of 315K - a drop of 12.4% MoM. And, even worse, prices are dropping as deflation rages: the Home Price Index down 0.3% on expectations of a 0.1% increase (and previously at 0.5%). Months of supply: 9.1. Stick a fork in it.

New home join the existing home sales double dip brigade, and plunge by an unprecedented 32.7%, nearly double the expected -18.7, compared to a previous reading of 14.7%. The government succeeded in making a mockery of this data series with all its ridiculous stimuli, and now we are officially in a housing double dip absent another massive stimulus bill. The median sales price of new houses sold in May 2010 was $200,900, lowest since December 2003, and a 9.6% drop YoY.

Last week's number one soundbite on CNBC was the increase from the all time bottom in new home sales. What they did not focus on was the reason for this. Here it is, courtesy of David Rosenberg.