It’s been a long time since the housing market has set a record that wasn’t something like, “Worst since…,” “Biggest decline since…,” or “….since the Great Depression.” The Commerce Department reported today that sales of new homes leapt in June, up 11% from May. According to Bloomberg, the figure marks the biggest monthly gain since 2001.

Sales outpaced analysis expectations, and shares of US Homebuilders climbed in kind. Ryland Homes, Lennar, Toll Brothers and Pulte Home all posted strong gains on the day.

Some analysts are making bold statements 3 straight months of positive housing data.

“We’re barely past the housing bottom, this thing is still fragile. It’s premature not premature to talk about home prices bottoming — it’s somewhere in the next three to six months. There is a light at the end of the tunnel,”

said the chief economist at Deutsche Banks, Joseph LaVorgna.

Back on planet earth, readers of this site  know that saying something like “home prices bottoming” is a meaningless statement. Even as the hardest hit markets grope for a bottom as investors step in to take advantage of mispriced homes, many high-end markets are still in freefall. This dynamic will continue until well-to-do markets experience the same price discovery as have their lower priced brethren.

All in good time.

Tags: cirios, Deutsche Bank, new home sales

This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 10:50 am and is filed under Mortgages. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.