Like existing-home sales, March housing starts, while up month-over-month, were still down 13.4% from last year.
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From their recent respective peaks, single-family home sales are down by 15%, single-family housing starts by 35% and single-family home prices by 3.5%.
Mr Rosenberg says government incentive schemes have been behind the housing-market rally and the jump in car sales.
Property investment has been a key driver of the economy, but banks have over-lent to the sector and housing sales are falling.
In the housing slump sales of Kohler's lower-price lines have been soft.
Nonetheless, the housing market continues to be a troubling factor in many areas of the country (Florida, for example), and the expiration of the first-time homebuyers' tax credit--which boosted home sales earlier this year--could cause a further temporary slowdown in housing, says Brookings' Wial.
America's booming housing market slowed slightly in October, as new-home sales slid by 4.5%.
There was plenty of new data on the housing sector this week, and the latest new-home sales figures will come out later today.
Also on Wednesday, we hear about housing starts, followed Thursday by jobless claims, existing-home sales, leading indicators, and finally the Philadelphia Fed survey.
Meanwhile, some promising news for the housing market- the National Association of Realtors said that pending home sales increased 7.3 percent in November to 100.1.
Unemployment continues to fall, housing starts continue to climb, auto sales have rebounded to pre-recession highs, and inflation and interest rates remain low.
Housing sales picked up in the second quarter, with first-time home buyers and those moving up accelerated purchases as the central bank eased policy and local governments lifted some restrictions.
Such a recession would hit interest-sensitive sectors the hardest: residential housing, commercial construction and automobile sales.
The data on the housing market was also more positive, as both existing- and new-home sales were better than expected.
Post-recession, light truck sales were battered due to a plunging housing market.
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The revival of the housing industry was most noticeable with home sales, home prices, and home-builder confidence rising, while the inventory of unsold homes and backlog of bank foreclosures shrank.
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The jump in sales of newly-built homes is of particular note, as housing construction has typically played a lead role in past US economic recoveries.
Another positive piece of data for housing came from sales of existing homes, which rose 7.8% month-over-month in August to 4.82 million units, way above the 4.5 million consensus estimate.
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We also get more information on the housing market, with the Case-Shiller Home Price Index report Tuesday, followed by pending home sales on Wednesday.
The lackluster sales have altered the plans of some manufactured-home companies that were expecting such housing to play a bigger role as the housing market remade itself following the crash.
Macroeconomic factors like high gas prices and a slumping housing market are already rearing their ugly heads in the larger retail world--witness the downbeat April sales numbers that came out on May 10.
Across the different sectors, non-manufacturing PMI for the construction industry hit a whopping 62.5, up by 4.5 percentage points over the previous month even as housing takes a beating from a new 20% tax on used home sales and a ban on same-city second home purchases in Beijing.
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According to Jonathan Banks, executive automotive analyst with the NADA Used Car Guide, used-vehicle prices will remain largely at their lofty levels because of looser lending standards, recovery in the housing and construction markets, a gradual decrease in unemployment levels, an increase in supply from booming new-car sales and pent-up consumer demand.
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Government figures on home sales also might give a false picture of the strength of the housing market because they rely on seller-reported prices without independent measurement.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the recovery of the U.S. housing market is an important driver of pickup sales, with builders and contractors, punished by the drop in new-home building caused by the economic crash of 2008, meeting a pent-up demand to replace old vehicles.
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