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Post by unlawflcombatnt on May 27, 2008 19:58:53 GMT -6
Once again the government has concocted an "increase" in an economic statistic, with this month's New Home Sales report. Today's release put April New Home Sales at 526K, which was a reported increase over March's revised 509K. However, as of yesterday (May 26th), March's total had previously been reported as 526K -- the exact same as today's report for April of 526K. This would have yielded no change from March to April. But the Census Bureau was equal to the challenge of concocting an increase, when there had not actually been one. They revised March downward from 526K to 509K. This is no inadvertent change, or "honest" revision. The Census Bureau downwardly revises housing numbers about ¾ of the time. Below is a modified copy of several different New Home Sale reports from Briefing.com, going back to October of 2007.: The dates at the top indicate the day this part of the graphic was originally from. The arrows indicate the subsequent revisions. Note that New Home Sales have been steadily dropping from October's 725K down to today's 526K. This is a -27.5% decline since October of 2007. In addition, in just the 2 month's since February's originally reported 590K New Home Sales, sales have fallen -11%.
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Post by danreller on May 27, 2008 20:45:50 GMT -6
I have read that when a houses gets foreclosed on or if an "owner" "walks away" and turns the house back over to the bank it's recorded as a "Sale" at the Country Recorder.
How many of these "sales" are real estate transfers and are really REOs?
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Post by Grapple on May 29, 2008 7:40:21 GMT -6
From what I understand New Home sales are based on contracts signed, not on closing. So even in good times there is a constant revision downward in later months because not everyone who signs a contract will close on a house. In bad times when even the home builders say there is unprecedented amount of dropped contracts these New Home sales figures should be treated very warily.
As unlawflcombatnt points out, the Census Bureau numbers are “adjusted” to create the impression that actual sales are up when in fact they are down.
However don’t expect to hear this on the TV or in most Newspapers, they simply take the press handout from the Census Bureau and rewrite it for their story. If they do search a little more they will add in the press handout from the Realtors and the Builders who will also spin the story to their benefit.
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Post by danreller on May 29, 2008 14:20:17 GMT -6
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Post by jeffolie on May 29, 2008 14:51:06 GMT -6
It is getting harder and harder to believe anything put out by our lying, corrupt politicans and government.
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