Home sales news

New home sales in February totaled 662k, little changed from the 664k print seen for January. That was 15k less than expected. Smoothing out this volatile number puts the 3 month average at 660k vs the 6 month average of 659k and 12 month average of 671k. Of note, the average 30 yr mortgage rate averaged 7.3% in February according to Bankrate and which is up from 6.96% in January so that was a possible influence on sales.

There was another increase in the number of homes for sale (we have heard more spec building from the bigger builders) to just shy of the most since 2008 and months’ supply was 8.4. The median home price fell by 3.5% sequentially and by 7.6% y/o/y in part to mix as more lower priced homes were sold relative to those above $500k.