Today, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Census Bureau released new home sales data for November 2010 showing an increase of 5.50 percent from the month before, but a decrease of 21.2 percent from a year ago.
The seasonally-adjusted new home sales rate for November was 290,000 homes, a 5.5 percent increase from October’s revised rate of 275,000 homes. The supply of new homes on the market decreased from an adjusted 8.8 month supply in October to a 8.2 month supply in November. The median new home price increased for the month to $213,000 from $197,200 the month before and down from $218,800 a year ago.
My Mantra
As has been my long-running mantra, I don’t like “seasonally adjusted” numbers and “rate” of sales. Why, for one I can’t figure out how in the world they compute the numbers. Second, I just don’t think discussing 
the “rate” of new home sales paints a realistic picture of the market. I think this holds especially true when we have artificial forces affecting the housing market such as tax credits as we have seen what an artificial “bubble” in the market this can cause.
Here is the raw data, the ACTUAL new homes sold- no fluff, no “adjusting”
- 21,000 new homes sold in November, a decrease of 4.5 percent from October’s revised 22,000 new homes sold and a 19.2 percent decrease from November 2009 when there were 26,000 new homes sold.
- Over 57 percent (12,000) of the new homes sold were in the South region-
- the west region had 5,000 new homes sold.
- the Midwest had 2,000 new homes sold.
- The Northeast had 2,000 new homes sold.
- YTD – In the first eleven months of 2010 there have been 299,000 new homes sold, a decrease of 14.6 percent from the same time last year.
- New Homes in the US in November have been for sale for a median time of 8.2 months since the homes were completed just slightly more than October’s revised figure of 8.1 months.
My prediction for 2010
As the year is coming to a close I’m going to stick with my prediction of 300,000 – 336,600 new homes sold in 2010 and I would say I’m going to be pretty much right on the money….WooHoo….
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