Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Silly Season(ality)

New home "sales" are out again.  And once again an upbeat surprise.  Not that anyone is surprised.  There was a glitch overnight and the data was released early.  Hat tip "shill."

Here's the gist of the release:


Sales of new single-family houses in September 2012 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 389,000, according to
estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
This is 5.7 percent (±14.8%)* above the revised August rate of 368,000 and is 27.1 percent (±19.3%) above the
September 2011 estimate of 306,000.


Here's the data that "supports" the +5.7% claim:

August 2012: 31,000 placed under contract ±14.8%
September 2012: 31,000 placed under contract ±14.8%



That's the thing to keep in mind.  Seasonality has been wrung out of the new homes market.  Don't trust the SA factors being used.

1 comment:

Rob Dawg said...

Off topic but an interesting electoral result:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/obama_vs_romney_create_your_own_electoral_college_map.html?map=HI_1,AK_5,FL_6,NH_3,MI_3,VT_1,ME_2,RI_1,NY_1,PA_3,NJ_3,DE_1,MD_1,VA_7,WV_5,OH_3,IN_6,IL_1,CT_2,WI_7,NC_7,DC_1,MA_1,TN_6,AR_5,MO_6,GA_6,SC_6,KY_5,AL_5,LA_5,MS_5,IA_7,MN_3,OK_5,TX_6,NM_2,KS_5,NE_5,SD_6,ND_6,WY_5,MT_7,CO_3,ID_5,UT_5,AZ_7,NV_7,OR_2,WA_1,CA_1

Obama 268, Romney 270.