Previously, we reported on Housing starts for homes which fell a little but rose for single family homes so the damage was in the multi-unit starts. Last week two more reports on housing were released. New home sales which fell from 642,000 to 569,000, and existing home sales which fell from 5.7 million to 5.57 million. At the same time mortgage rates fell. Is this something we need to worry about affecting the economy? Probably not.
We have full employment and builder’s sentiment numbers are high. Selling existing homes might be a result of inventory shortage and single family home starts went up, though the overall number fell. Also if builders were having trouble selling their homes they would not be upbeat about it. So, new home sales for April falling might be because they were very large numbers, a 10 year high in March. Nothing more than average the two months together.
It is a trend downward that we worry about, and so far that is not the case.
Comments
Log in or sign up to join the conversation.