Data: Existing Home Sales – New Unemployment Claims
Courtesy of Tom Lindmark at But Then What
The NAR reported that existing home sales increased 3.6% June over May. Unit sales in June were 4.89 million versus 4.72 million in June. Inventory fell to 3.82 million which represents a 9.4 month supply. Nothing here to knock your socks off but by the same token we are at least moving up. Hey, any port in a storm.
Initial claims for unemployment were up 3.6% for the week. They rose by 30,000 to 554,000. Remember we’ve been talking about some seasonality adjustments that skew this number. Those adjustments artificially reduced the number for the last two weeks and now this report is skewed upwards. A look at the more reliable four-week moving average shows it was down by 19,000 to 566,000. Still horrible numbers but at least the trend is positive.
We probably need to get used to slow steady improvement and hope that some other shoe doesn’t fall on us. Right now it looks like a long climb to mediocrity. Wish it were better.
more: here and here (Calculated Risk for a good discussion of housing)
