New Home Sales: August 2011

Today, the U.S. Census Department released its monthly New Residential Home Sales Report for August showing a monthly decline with sales falling 2.3% since July but increasing 6.1% from August 2010 and remaining at an epically low level of 295K SAAR units.

It's important to recognize that the inventory of new homes has now fallen to a new series low at 162K units, lowest level seen in in at least 47 years while the median number of months for sale declined to 8.9.

The monthly supply remained flat at 6.6 months while the median selling price declined 7.72% and the average selling price declined 8.48% from the year ago level.

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