New Homes Sales Up, But What Does That Really mean ?

Before we talk numbers we need a reference, something sadly lacking from the State Run Media these days. So lets look at new homes sales figures for July 2007 — about 850,000 units annualized, were sold. 2007, you recall was before the major home sales downturn peak slaes were probably in late 2005, early 2006.  So what does “new home sales up” mean now? Compared to foreclosures, people losing their homes, foreclosures are about three times as great. With a large portion of those foreclosure strategic, the homeowner is upside down in the loan, prices are dropping greatly. Many of the homes being foreclosed, it stands to reason, are newer homes that were sold at a premium before the market home market crashed.

Overall it’s propaganda, means almost nothing as the following chart will show:

New home sales are ticking up slightly again, bringing some much-needed relief to the beleagured homebuilders. But watch out. Mark Hanson produced this chart, showing foreclosure starts against new home sales. As you can see, the new foreclosure starts jumped even more in july than new home sales, meaning trouble down the road for homebuilders — especially once that $8,000 first-time homebuilder tax credit runs out.

Chart from ClusterStock:

Summing up, we have seen new home sales drop by half over the past two years. While foreclosures went sky high, up by 93% over July 2006.

Foreclosure Filings Up 93 Percent From July 2006

RealityTrack, the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its July 2007 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows a total of 179,599 foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported during the month, up 9 percent from the previous month and up 93 percent from July 2006. The report also shows a national foreclosure rate of one foreclosure filing for every 693 households for the month.

Meanwhile, prices for new and existing homes probably fell everywhere.

Home Prices Collaspe

The basis of most Americans wealth, home equity, reflected in home prices. More here:

The bad news keeps coming — The number of U.S. households on the verge of losing their homes rose 7 percent from June to July, as the escalating foreclosure crisis continued to outpace government efforts to limit the damage.

Foreclosure filings were up 32 percent from the same month last year, RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday. More than 360,000 households, or one in every 355 homes, received a foreclosure-related notice, such as a notice of default or trustee’s sale. That’s the highest monthly level since the foreclosure-listing firm began publishing the data more than four years ago.

Banks repossessed more than 87,000 homes in July, up from about 79,000 homes a month earlier.

As home go under water, the key thing to keep in mind is the banks ultimately take the loss.