New Home Sales: December 2008

Today, the U.S. Census Department released its monthly New Residential Home Sales Report for December showing continued and even accelerating deterioration in demand for new residential homes across every tracked region resulting in a startling 44.83% year-over-year decline and a truly horrendous 76.17% peak sales decline nationally.

It’s important to keep in mind that this stunning year-over-year decline is coming on the back of the significant declines seen in 2006 and 2007 further indicating the enormity of the housing bust and clearly dispelling any notion of a bottom being reached.

Additionally, although inventories of unsold homes have been dropping for well over a year, the sales volume has been declining so significantly that the sales pace now stands at an astonishing 12.9 months of supply.

The following charts show the extent of sales declines seen since 2005 as well as illustrating how the further declines in 2008 are coming on top of the 2006 and 2007 results (click for larger versions)


Look at the following summary of today’s report:

National

• The median sales price for a new home declined 9.31% as compared to December 2007.
• New home sales were down 44.83% as compared to December 2007.
• The inventory of new homes for sale declined 27.7% as compared to December 2007.
• The number of months’ supply of the new homes has increased 31.6% as compared to November 2007 and now stands at 12.9 months.

Regional

• In the Northeast, new home sales were down 50.0% as compared to December 2007.
• In the Midwest, new home sales were down 31.1% as compared to December 2007.
• In the South, new home sales were down 46.0% as compared to December 2007.
• In the West, new home sales were down 47.4% as compared to December 2007.