Home Sales, Home Prices Continue to Say Real Estate Market is Strong
Any brewing concerns that the U.S. housing market is headed over a cliff were at least partially wiped away on the heels of a spectacular New Home Sales report this week. All told, new houses sold at an annualized pace of 544,000 units in December. That's second only to the 545,000 unit pace set in February of last year. The last time before that we got such a strong number was in 2007, when the figure was on the way down.
In light of the strong new home sales data, it should be reiterated that sales of existing homes reached a similarly strong pace in December as well. Last week we learned existing home sales hit a pace of 5.46 million units last month, which was the fourth highest reading since 2006. Both data sets remain in decided -- even if choppy -- uptrends.
Home Sales Chart
The New Home Sales report follows encouraging home-price trend reports from earlier this week. The Case-Schiller 20-city index posted on Tuesday says home prices improved by 5.8% on a year-over-year basis in November. Likewise, the FHFA Housing Price Index grew 0.5% from October to November.
Home Prices Chart
The continued rise in home prices points to a strong real estate market... strength that is underscored by the fact that total home sales also continue to grow.
Homebuilders ETF is (XHB). Among the Real Estate ETFs are (IYR). (VNQ) is one of the REIT ETFs.