Significant increases in new home sales in Northeast & Midwest for May
Dennis Norman
By: Dennis Norman
This morning the U.S. Department of Commerce released a report showing the sale of New Homes in May were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 342,000. this represents a 0.6% drop from Aprils rate of 344,000 and is almost 33% down from a year ago.
Three of the four regions in the US actually saw an increase in new home sales for the month. The Northeast region was up 28.6% followed by the Midwest and the the West with increases of 18.6% and 1.3% respectively. The South saw a 8.5% drop in sales for the month.
Median prices for new homes increased to $221,600 from $212,600 in April. Homes in the $200,000 – $299,999 range continue to dominate sales with 28% of the sales, homes in the $150,000 – $199,999 range accounted for 25% of the sales for the month.
The inventory of new homes continued it’s decline down to 292,000 homes in May which represents a 10.2 month supply. A 10.2 month supply is still about twice as high as we would like to see but it is certainly headed the right direction. The Northeast region has the largest inventory of new homes with a 14.66 month supply, followed by the Midwest with a 11.29 month supply, the West at 9.75 months and the South at 9.3 months.
These figures are once again consistent with my earlier comments that I think the market is leveling off and perhaps is close to finding it’s bottom. As new home inventories continue to decline we should see more strength in sales numbers.
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