July new home sales outlook report 8/22/2012

July new-home sales outlook report 8/22/2012, US new home sales forecast july 2012 : Housing demand tops next week's economic data list. Existing-home sales will be reported Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expect resales to have risen to an annual rate of 4.5 million in July, from 4.37 million in June.

July new-home sales, due Thursday, are projected to increase to 365,000 from a 350,000 rate in June.

Home sales and orders for durable goods probably climbed in July, signalling the US is starting to strengthen after a second-quarter slowdown, economists said before reports this week.

Combined purchases of new and existing houses increased to a 4.89 million annual rate from a 4.72 million pace in June, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey. Bookings for long-lasting goods climbed the most this year, another report may show.

Buoyed by cheaper properties and record-low mortgage costs, demand for real estate is bolstering the industry that helped trigger the recession. Minutes of the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting, also due this week, will be a reminder that policy makers are monitoring economic data such as housing and business investment to determine whether more stimulus is needed.

“Things seem to be looking a bit better compared to the weak second quarter,” said Omair Sharif, a US economist at RBS Securities in Stamford, Connecticut. “All the data point to a sustained improvement in housing.”

The National Association of Realtors will release existing house sales on August 22. Purchases increased 3.3 per cent to a 4.52 million annual rate, following a 4.37 million pace in June, according to the Bloomberg survey median.

Sales of new homes, due the next day from the Commerce Department, rebounded to a 365,000 annual rate in July from 350,000 the prior month, the survey median showed. Newly constructed properties made up 6.7 per cent of the residential market in 2011, down from a high of 15 per cent during the boom of the past decade. Last year marked the worst year for the industry in records going back to 1963, as builders sold 306,000 new homes, down from 323,000 in 2010. 
Reports last week adding to evidence housing is on the mend. Residential construction permits, a proxy for future work, jumped to a four-year high in July even as housing starts fell from the fastest pace in more than three years. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo index of builder confidence rose in August to the highest level since 2007.

PulteGroup, the largest US homebuilder by revenue, posted a better-than-estimated profit and a 32 per cent jump in orders in the second quarter. AV Homes, which develops properties in Florida and Arizona, said it closed on 41 per cent more houses in the second quarter compared to a year earlier, and contracts signed, net of cancellations, more than doubled.

“The housing market continues to gain momentum,” Allen Anderson, chief executive officer of AV Homes, said on an August 7 earnings conference call. “We are no longer battling the headwinds of the housing recession.”

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