Having suddenly dropped 6.8 percent in June to the slowest pace in seven months, the seasonally adjusted pace of new single-family home sales in the U.S. gained 5.4 percent in July. At a rate of 507,000 annual sales, the current pace is 25.8 percent higher than at the same time last year but remains 22.5 percent below than the long-term average pace of 654,000 for this time of the year.
The pace of new single-family home sales in July peaked at 1,389,000 in 2005, 174 percent higher than last month.
And in terms of inventory, the number of new single-family homes for sale across the county is currently 218,000, up 1.9 percent from June, 6.9 percent higher versus the same time last year, and the highest July inventory since 2009.
In the West, the pace of new home sales gained 6.7 percent in July, up 29.6 percent versus the same time last year.
Why is this graph not deflated by population? It would be so much more meaningful (as in, actually meaningful), and population data is not hard to find.