Monthly data out this morning show sales of new homes fell 7 percent in December, to an annualized rate of 414,000, which was below the estimates of all 75 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Sales are up 35 percent since the bottom of the market in 2011, but as Calculated Risk notes, they are still basically at or below the levels seen during the bottom of every previous recession. New homes sales are just one piece of the market. And as Trulia’s Jed Kolko points out on Twitter (TWTR), they’re a historically small piece right now.
More broadly, there are signs of “remarkable resilience” in the recovery, according to a Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey released last week. It found that nondistressed homes spent an average of 9.7 weeks on the market in December, or 20 percent less time than in December 2012. Also, homes are selling closer to their asking prices. In December, homes sold for 97.1 percent of their list prices, on average, up from 95.5 percent a year earlier.