With mortgage refis hovering at their lowest level since Dec 2000 (and new home mortgage apps down 9% YoY), and US housing data broadly disappointing all year, expectations were for new home sales to follow existing home sales lower (especially after its surprise jump last month).
New Home Sales spiked 6.7% MoM in May (a big positive surprise and most since Nov 2017) but June was expected to see a reversion with a 3.1% MoM drop. But it was far worse – not only did June’s 6.7% surge get revised lower to just 3.9%, but June tumbled 5.3% MoM (well below expectations).
This is the biggest MoM drop in New Home Sales since Dec 2017… and this follows a plunge in Housing Starts in June.
This is the weakest SAAR new home sales print since Oct 2017…
And worse still, the median price tumbled to $302,100 (a big drop from $309,700) and the lowest since February 2017 – still not encouraging buyers to step up.
But the market remains notably bifurcated as 18% of new homes sold in June cost more than $500,000, up from 17% prior month.
Demand weakened in three of four U.S. regions, including a 7.7 percent drop in the South, the largest area. The decline in sales left 301,000 homes available nationwide in June, the most since March 2009.
Refis are down 30% YoY…
And housing macro data has been disappointing all year – dragging homebuilder stocks with it…
And homebuilder stocks are tumbling after this latest disappointment…
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