US New Home Sales Unexpectedly Rebound In April

Following the collapse in existing home sales in April, new home sales were also expected to plummet 23.4% MoM but through the magic of seasonal adjustments, new home sales rose 0.6% MoM (following an upwardly revised 13.7% drop in March).

Source: Bloomberg

This is a 5-sigma beat…

Source: Bloomberg

Year over year, new home sales remain lower…

Even with the gain, sales are unlikely to rebound to pre-coronavirus levels, said Alex Barron, an analyst with the Housing Research Center in El Paso, Texas.

“We’re still trying to understand what is the new normal,” Barron said. “Is it sales down 20% from the 2019 level or down 40%?”

This is extremely different from the collapse in existing home sale…

Hard to say the reason for this unexpected rebound but we note that median prices tumbled 8.6% YoY to $309.9K…

One final caveat on this data as the commerce department notes, today’s release includes revisions to seasonally adjusted data.