Housing Has Legs

Surprisingly strong housing numbers out this morning: new single-family homes rose 16.6% in April to an annual pace of 616,000 (see chart below), well above expectations, and up 23.8% over the past year. Supply of new homes fell to just 4.7 months, all due to faster sales (inventories were flat). Sales are up strongly in the Northeast, solidly in the South and West, although down in the Midwest. The median ($321,100) and average ($379,800) prices jumped 9.7% and 13.5%, respectively, the last year.

There is more to come. The graph below shows the data from 1963. We may never reach the 2005 peak of 1.328 million (or, maybe we will), but housing will continue to strengthen because job growth and wages are rising, and home ownership is still low. Housing has legs.

• 3 Mar, 2019

  Truth and Consequences

  Archaeological evidence suggests that, for thousands of years, the people who inhabited the Great Plains of North ...

• 26 Feb, 2015

  Not Deflation

  The Consumer Price Index dropped 0.7% in January, bringing the year-over-year change to negative 0.1%. With the ...

• 19 Nov, 2015

  Fairy Tales

  The technology bubble of the late 1990s is a distant memory for most investors, and an ignorance for the rest. But back ...