HOUSING SHOCK: New Home Sales Plunge 11.3 Percent!

Courtesy of John Carney at The Business Insider

Sales of new homes in the US dropped 11.3% to an annualized rate of 355k units in November.

The consensus was for a rise of 2.3%. to 438,000 from 430,000 a month earlier.

This is a really ugly number, far lower than the anticipated decline. It comes on the news of a 30K downward revision to 400k units annualized in October.

New home sales are down 9.0% compared to November of last year when the annualized sales pace stood at 390k. That right: new home sales are worse than they were at the height of the financial crisis.

Some additional data points:

The median new home sales price was $217,400, a 3.8% increase over the month and a 1.9% decline over the past year.
The average new home sales price increased 9.5% to $280,300 over the month, reflecting a 3.4% decline over the past year.
The inventory of new homes available for sale at the end of the month dropped to a 7.9 month supply. That’s a decline of 5,000 to 235,000 units.
Over the past year, new homes available for sale are down 36.5% while the inventory of new homes is down 30.7%.
The South took the worst beating, with a decline in new home sales of 21.1&. The West saw a decline of 9.2%. The Midwest saw the strongest performance, with sales rising 21.4% over the month. (Note: If you want to know why the home sales are heading in opposite ways regionally,check out this map of the recession.)