New Home Sales: November 2011

Today, the U.S. Census Department released its monthly New Residential Home Sales Report for November showing a monthly increase with sales climbing 1.6% since October and 9.8% above the level seen in November of 2010 but remaining at an epically low level of 315K SAAR units.

It's important to recognize that the inventory of new homes has now fallen to a new series low at 158K units, lowest level seen in in at least 47 years while the median number of months for sale going flat at 7.4.

The monthly supply remained declined to 6.0 months while the median selling price declined 2.5% and the average selling price declined 13.77% from the year ago level.

The following chart show the extent of sales decline to date (click for full-larger version).

FHFA Monthly Home Prices: October 2011

Today, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released the latest results of their monthly house price index (HPI) showing that, nationally, home prices declined 0.21% since September and declined 3.16% below the level seen in October 2010.

The FHFA monthly HPI are formulated from home purchase information collected from mortgages that have been sold to or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

University of Michigan Survey of Consumers December 2011 (Final)

Today's final release of the Reuters/University of Michigan Survey of Consumers for December indicated improvement in consumer sentiment with a reading of 69.9 but falling 6.17% below the level seen last year while one year inflation expectations declined slightly at 3.1%.

The Index of Consumer Expectations (a component of the Conference Board's Index of Leading Economic Indicators) rose to 63.6, and the Current Economic Conditions Index climbed to 79.6.

It's important to recognize that consumer sentiment has seriously eroded over the past few months with the current results remaining near levels not seen since 1980, a major indication that consumers are in the process of tightening even further on spending.