More data delayed by the US government furlough at the end of last year is trickling in; this week US home sales and house price for December and full-year 2018.
Despite a period of weakness during autumn 2018, new home sales in the US ended 2018 up +1.5% compared to the total for 2017. Contracts for new, single-family home sales increased almost +4% to 621,000. (background here: https://madisonsreport.com/2019/02/28/us-residential-vacancies-and-homeownership-report-q4-2018/). For the year 2018 new single-family home sales summed to 622,000, compared to 613,000 in 2017.
Be ahead of these data releases! Don’t delay, this week’s softwood lumber market comment was published to the website Monday morning.
Madison’s Lumber Prices, weekly, are a good forecast indicator of US home builder’s current lumber buying activity ——> DETAIL
US New Home Sales: December 2018
Contracts for new, single-family home sales in the US increased almost +4% to a 621,000 seasonally adjusted annual rate, according to estimates from the joint release of HUD and the Census Bureau Monday. However, the surprisingly strong initially reported November pace was revised down from a 657,000 rate to a more expected 599,000.
For the year 2018 new single-family home sales summed to 622,000, a +1.5% improvement over 2017’s 613,000 new single-family home sales.
The months of supply decreased in December to 6.6 months from 6.7 months in November
The seasonally‐adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of December was 344,000. This represents a supply of 6.6 months at the current sales rate. — US Census Bureau
Inventory continued to rise in December, increasing to 344,000 homes available for sale. A year prior, new single-family home inventory stood at 294,000. The months’ supply measure held relatively steady at an elevated 6.6. The count of completed, ready-to-occupy new single-family homes in inventory increased from 63,000 in December 2017 to 71,000 in December 2018.
US Median New House Sales Price: January 2019
CoreLogic® Tuesday released the CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI™) and HPI Forecast™ for January 2019, which shows US home prices rose both year-over-year and month-over-month. Home prices increased nationally by +4.4% year over year from January 2018. On a month-over-month basis, prices increased by +0.1% in January 2019.
The CoreLogic YoY increase had been in the 5% to 7% range for the last few years. This is the slowest twelve-month home-price growth rate since August 2012. — Calculated Risk