The mystery of August house sales: the best analyst indicates that “the data from the incredible housing market” defies credulity “

Oliver Allen, senior American economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, don’t buy it. In a research note entitled US New sales: Outlook Grim, despite the incredible jump of August in salesAllen says that data “defies credulity” when defined against wider trends shaping the accommodation. He also wondered if the head shot precisely reflects the underlying request or is intended to be revised in the coming months. Calculating him as a 20.5%leap, Allen said he was “inexplicable” that the new home sales are reaching their highest level in more than three years suddenly.

When he was contacted to comment, Allen said Fortune That even if the discussions on the quality of American economic data were “obviously more important than usual this year”, given the dismissal by President Trump of the head of the work statistics office, he does not see the incredible data of August in a broader diagram. “In general, economic data in the United States is very complete, of high quality and statistical agencies are very clear and open to their methods.” However, he said that new house sales numbers are a series of American data “well towards the lower end of the quality spectrum”, generally comprising enormous margins of error, important revisions and high volatility. He said that the image of new houses of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) is generally a “much more reasonable description of the probable trend”.

The NAHB, in fact, was largely agree with Allen in its response to August data, although more restricted. President Buddy Hughes, also a household builder and developer of Lexington, in North Carolina, described it as “significant overvoltage” and said that it could be subject to a downward revision “. The association still expects a general improvement in sales in the coming months, supported by mortgage rates that are just down. Sales of novelties were supported by incentives for house manufacturers, said the NAHB, citing recent survey data showing that 37% of manufacturers have dropped prices in August and 66% used a sort of sales incentives.

The opposite winds were still riding

Under the surprise of the data, the structural forces which took place on the housing market remain clear. Higher mortgage rates, stricter credit availability and growing signs of low labor market have reduced the group of eligible buyers. At the same time, the supply of existing houses on the market continues to recover after years of rarity, intensifying competition for manufacturers of houses already under pressure to move stocks.

The action of new unsold houses remains historically high, reaching its highest point since 2016 in June, according to the Bank of America Institute. The supply to New Home had increased at this 9.8 -month stage – this highest point since 2022. The co -founder of Resiclub, launches Lambert, who closely follows the release of public builders and collects her own owner housing data, said Fortune In July, the increase in stocks means that buyers of houses gained a lever effect.

The government report has also shown a clear monthly point in the median selling price of a new unifamilial house. But Allen warns against reading too much of that, noting that the series is not adjusted seasonally and is subject to volatility. On a three -month -old basis in a seasonal adjusted, median prices continue to fall downwards, suggesting that the evacuation pressure is already emerging.

Look at the biggest trend

Most economists are now expecting August sales are considerably revised lower. Pantheon Macroeconomics Projects The data will be reduced to the beach of 650,000 in the coming months – falling below this threshold – as the challenges of the offer and the affordability reserve.

When he was contacted to comment, Lambert said Fortune He agreed with Allen about the August data, saying that the data “seem suspicious”, citing what the manufacturers of public houses report and the data that Resiclub is collecting. “Most monthly reports of the census driver have an error margin of around 10% to 20%,” said Lambert. “Often very large swings of a month in these data end up being the sound of data. The best way to read this data is to take each individual monthly report with a grain of salt and zoom and observe the trend. ”

And what trend is it? Lambert says to pay attention to the solar belt, which he called “the epicenter of the construction of American houses”. In accordance with the NAHB survey, Lambert said that softening in the solar belt in the past year has led many manufacturers to offer larger incentives and even price reductions to prevent a higher withdrawal from new house sales. “Sales of new homes have evolved on the side this year; However, if you take off the onion, things are much more high than data on sales of new houses do not suggest. ”

(This report was updated with additional Oliver Allen comments from the Pantheon macroeconomics and to delete the involvement that Lance Lambert saw any potential increase in activity following the obtaining of house buyers in July.)

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