Tuesday morning's release of the June New Home Sales from the Census Bureau came in at 592K, up 3.5% month-over-month from a revised 572K in May. Seasonally adjusted estimates for March and April were revised. The Investing.com forecast was for 560K.
Here is the opening from the report:
Sales of new single-family houses in June 2016 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 592,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 3.5 percent (±23.9%)* above the revised May rate of 572,000 and is 25.4 percent (±27.9%)* above the June 2015 estimate of 472,000. [Full Report]
For a longer-term perspective, here is a snapshot of the data series, which is produced in conjunction with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The data since January 1963 is available in the St. Louis Fed's FRED repository here. We've included a six-month moving average to highlight the trend in this highly volatile series.
Over this time frame we see the steady rise in new home sales following the 1990 recession and the acceleration in sales during the real estate bubble that peaked in 2005.
The Population-Adjusted Reality
Now let's examine the data with a simple population adjustment. The Census Bureau's mid-month population estimates show a 72.2% increase in the US population since 1963. Here is a chart of new home sales as a percent of the population.
New single-family home sales are about 0.2% above the 1963 start of this data series. The population-adjusted version is 41.8% below the first 1963 sales and at a level similar to the lows we saw during the double-dip recession in the early 1980s, a time when 30-year mortgage rates peaked above 18%. Today's 30-year rate is around 4%.