U.S. new home sales drop 11.4% in April, the most in two years

[jpak]

Source: LA Times

US S. sales of new homes last month registered the biggest drop in more than two years.

The Commerce Department said Tuesday that new home sales skidded 11.4% in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 569,000. It was the biggest monthly drop since March 2015. Economists had expected a more modest retreat from March sales of 642,000, which were the highest since October 2007. Sales in April were still up 0.5% from a year earlier.

Sales fell in every region of the country, led by a 26.3% plunge in the West, the biggest drop since October 2010.

Economists were inclined to view the April reading as a one-month blip. Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, called last month’s drop “a correction from the March cycle high, not a warning sign.”

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Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-new-home-sales-20170523-story.html

[50 Shades Of Blue]

1. Thanks, Trump!

[ffr]

6. Thanks to Mr. & Mrs. Hoodwink voter, supporter of a grifter.

Instead of the candidate who's popularity soared while she was in office.

[Achilleaze]

2. Trump slump (R)

Thanks, Comrade Casino* and cabal of colluding republican cronies.

* republican Draft Dodger-in-Chief

[liberal N proud]

3. Explains why I can't get my house sold

[Wellstone ruled]

5. People are down right scared.

Trump has caused many to pull back on big ticket items. Here in Vegas,housing is still blowing the doors off and those sales are to persons from the Cold States. But again,so many 2007 signs are showing we might be near the end. That will show in the final numbers for this month. The last time it blew up was in May of 2007,and it turned over night.

[DippyDem]

4. And the Drumpf economic holocaust begins.

[ffr]

7. Republicans are pros at depressions and recessions.

And have a long history of making it so.

Small government, my ass!

[lastlib]

14. ...and CONs at everything else.....

[workinclasszero]

20. They sure as hell are!

But the 1% always make out like bandits!

[lastlib]

15. The housing market drives a HUGE part of the economy.

It's a leading indicator--when housing starts to go south, consumer goods nearly always follow soon after.

Tinyhands is shaking up the political and economic psyche of the country, and people who buy stuff, like new homes and the things that go into them, get rattled and hold onto their wallets. Everything else in the economy sooner or later follows suit, and voila! another GOPee-driven recession.

[Tiggeroshii]

8. This was gonna happen regardless of who was president

But it is being sped up since these take from the bottom and put as much on the top policies have been excacerbbated a thousand fold under Trump. I predict another recession quite soon.

[Demsrule86]

16. No...a president with a brain and a Congress with a brain could avoid the recession coming our way..

but we have GOP types in charge/

[Tiggeroshii]

17. I'm speaking more on what Congress would be and has been contributing to the mix

Hillary as president would have still had these imbeciles holding back regulations that could prevent such a thing.

[Hortensis]

31. Don't forget, if Hill won, we almost certainly would also

have gotten at least a majority in, and possibly control of, the senate. Schumer would be majority leader, and our party would control all committees. The same in the house was distantly but genuinely possible, but in any case our caucus, and power, would be substantially increased.

As for the economy, even rump knew it always does better with the Democrats in control.
Or perhaps he just remembered someone once told him that.

[Tiggeroshii]

32. This is true...

Of course, there is -right now, the potential for veto-proof majorities at the rate we're going. Not that it will save us from the impending and continuing disasters that have already been triggered by this abomination of a cheeto-faced wanna-be-dictator.

[Hortensis]

33. Wish I remember who said it, but someone who's

been in government for a long time pointed out that we can restore programs and other damage fairly quickly, that his worry was that damage to our constitutional norms may be more difficult to repair.

[Tiggeroshii]

34. Which is why a quick impeachment or removal is pretty crucial at this point.

In order to rebuke this swaying away from constitutional norms as we are seeing.

[Demsrule86]

37. I stand corrected. You are right.

[aggiesal]

9. I would believe this to be really bad news ...

I'm a bit confused by this because the drop of 11.4% is huge since
April is the start of the home buying season. Parents move from low
performing school districts to high performing school districts, so the
April - July selling period is big. August homes don't close by the time
schools start in late August, early September.

But the 11.4% drop is only from March's sales numbers 569K / 642K = 88.6
100 - 88.6 = 11.4%

The scary part is the 26.3% in the west, where I live, and I'm looking to
sell 2 houses in the next 3 months.

[progree]

10. The numbers are seasonally adjusted

[aggiesal]

11. These look like hard raw numbers ...

I'm not saying that are not seasonally adjusted, but
nothing in the article mentions that they are seasonally adjusted.

These number are just month-to-month numbers.
There was a drop of 11.4% in April from March numbers.

[progree]

12. "seasonally adjusted annual rate of 569,000"

{excerpt}The Commerce Department said Tuesday that new home sales skidded 11.4% in April to a ***seasonally adjusted*** annual rate of 569,000. It was the biggest monthly drop since March 2015. Economists had expected a more modest retreat from March sales of 642,000, which were the highest since October 2007.{/excerpt}

Please see also table 1a in the official release (page 3) -- where the table is subtitled "seasonally adjusted"
https://www.census.gov/construction/nrs/pdf/newressales.pdf

The last 12 months, seasonally adjusted, in thousands are:

560, 559, 627, 567, 570, 577, 579, 548, 599, 607, 642, 569

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. Didn't help that tRump's first trade action was to hammer Canada on softwood lumber.

Imposed 20% tariffs on softwood lumber, jacking up costs to home builders, done without negotiation or study.

[not fooled]

24. And for the benefit of the

kochs, who own softwood plantations in the Southeast.

Gotta pander to those who are actually running the country!

[Kittycow]

26. A-ha !

That shines another light on the softwood lumber tariff!

[NCjack]

18. People know that their healthcare insurance is coming to

an end or will be extremely expensive, and they are not committing to purchases of houses and cars. The GOP and Trump have killed the Obama economy. Thank you , GOP and Trump voters -- I hope the crash hits you harder than me.

[workinclasszero]

19. THANKS TRUMP!!!

[titaniumsalute]

21. Trump will blame Obama or Hillary

[NickB79]

22. A large part of it is that people are no longer selling starter homes anymore

People are more often renting out their old homes when they move, thereby depriving the housing market of houses to actually sell. Inventory for these homes is very low right now, when people are finding it harder and harder to buy new construction at exorbitant prices.

https://www.trulia.com/blog/trends/market-mismatch-q12017/

[burnbaby]

23. bingo

my son bought a starter home and wants to move on to a larger home. He is not selling he is renting the smaller home

[Hortensis]

36. Interesting, thanks.

[elmac]

25. These so called bidding wars for homes

is only happening in very small areas in the country. Its still a buyers market in most of the US. Many parts will never fully recover from the crash, just too many homes, too few people who can buy a home.

[displacedtexan]

27. Houses here in San Francisco aren't all sold immediately anymore.

Some of them have been on the market for over 2 weeks now. No obvious bidding wars.

This is really odd for this market.

[Mr. Ected]

28. I'm in real estate and in Georgia, inventory is sparse

It's leading to bidding wars on homes and what amounts to a strong seller's market. We're seeing more mobile home sales and the like because there's literally nothing on the market in the lower price points.

My March numbers were the 2nd best in 5 years for me. My April numbers were off by nearly 20%, so this nationwide study seems to fairly closely track my personal experience.

[Bengus81]

29. Welcome to early 2008 and another Republican DISASTER slowly unfolding.............n/t

[HughBeaumont]

30. Well, yeah . . . .

. . . that is kind of the end result of indebting an entire generation out of the ability to finance big ticket items, seeing as how they're already paying 1/4-3/4 of a mortgage for their education. Way to go, Trapitalism.

[hack89]

35. Sales are down in RI due to a lack of inventory

there is a lot of demand but no one is selling - all the low interest mortgages over the past decade plus high rents make it easier to owners to keep and rent out their old homes when they upgrade to a nice home.