Just as yesterday’s existing home sales showed the federal tax credit aimed at supporting the housing market just juiced the numbers for a few months, numbers today revealed that new home sales were down record numbers too last month:
New U.S. single-family home sales unexpectedly fell in July to set their slowest pace on record while prices were the lowest in more than 6-1/2 years, government data showed on Wednesday.
The Commerce Department said sales dropped 12.4 percent to a 276,000 unit annual rate, the lowest since the series started in 1963, from a downwardly revised 315,000 units in June.
As I talk about in the below interview, slower than normal sales could eventually become the new normal. With only one month of data, it is impossible to make that call now. But if it did, that would only be bad for those who invested money in the juiced market and are losing now. Ultimately it would mean a more stable housing market, if we really can find the bottom of this mess.