Today, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Census Bureau released new home sales data for October 2010 showing a decrease of 8.1 percent from the month before, but a decrease of 28.5 percent from a year ago.
The seasonally-adjusted new home sales rate for October was 283,000 homes, a 8.1 percent decrease from Septbmer’s rate of 308,000 homes. The supply of new homes on the market increase from an adjusted 7.9 month supply in September to a 8.6 month supply in October. The median new home price decreased for the month to $194,900 from $226,300 the month before and down from $215,100 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”
- 23,000 new homes sold in October, a decrease of 4.0 percent from September’s revised 24,000 new homes sold and a 30.0 percent decrease from October 2009 when there were 33,000 new homes sold.
- Over 60.0 percent (142,000) of the new homes sold were in the South region-
- the west region had 4,000 new homes sold.
- the Midwest had 3,000 new homes sold.
- The Northeast had 2,000 new homes sold.
- YTD – In the first nine months of 2010 there have been 279,000 new homes sold, a decrease of 13.8 percent from the same time last year.
- Median sale price of new homes in the US in October was $194,900, a decrease of 13.9 percent from September’s median new home price of $226,300 and a 9.3 percent decrease from a year ago when the median new home price was $215,100.
- New Homes in the US in October have been for sale for a median time of 8.6 months since the homes were completed just slightly more than September’s revised figure of 8.5 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.
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