New home sales data for March 2014 was again nasty – the seasonally adjusted headlines are bad, and our analysis is essentially the same. This is an volatile data series, but the three month rolling average is now showing contraction year-over-year.
Econintersect Analysis:
- unadjusted sales growth decelerated 15.0% (after last month’s revised deceleration of 3.5%) month-over-month.
- unadjusted year-over-year sales down 12.2%. Growth is now well under the range seen during the last 12 months.
- three month unadjusted trend rate of growth decelerated 8.1% month-over-month – is down 1.8% year-over-year.
Unadjusted Year-over-Year Rate of Growth – Sales (blue line) and 3 month rolling average of Sales (red line)
US Census Headlines:
- seasonally adjusted sales down 14.5% month-over-month
- seasonally adjusted year-over-year sales down 13.3%
- market expected seasonally adjusted annualized sales of 440K to 470K (consensus 455K) versus the actual at 384K.
The quantity of new single family homes for sale remains well below historical levels – but remains generally on an improving trend line.
Seasonally Adjusted New Homes for Sale
As the sales data is noisy (large monthly variations). The growth trend line (not drawn) is relatively flat over the last two years although the three month trend is now decelerating.
Year-over-Year Change – Unadjusted New Home Sales Volumes (blue line) with zero growth line emphasized (red line)
The headlines of the data release:
Sales of new single-family houses in March 2014 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 384,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 14.5 percent (±12.9%) below the revised February rate of 449,000 and is 13.3 percent (±9.9%) below the March 2013 estimate of 443,000.
