New Home Sales: Still Scraping Bottom

From the Census Bureau:

Sales of new single-family houses in August 2011 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 295,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 2.3 percent (±13.9%)* below the revised July rate of 302,000, but is 6.1 percent (±18.8%)* above the August 2010 estimate of 278,000.

Right after the release, the Associated Press's Derek Kravitz said it all nicely in three paragraphs (report may be revised during the next few hours):

Sales of new homes fell to a six-month low in August. The fourth straight monthly decline during the peak buying season suggests the housing market is years away from a recovery.

The Commerce Department says new-home sales fell 2.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 295,000. That's less than half the roughly 700,000 that economists say must be sold to sustain a healthy housing market.

This year could be the worst for sales since the government began keeping records a half century ago.

Here's the updated trailing twelve months graph:

To avoid 2011 coming in as the worst on record (in truth, the worst since World War II), actual sales during the final four months of the year will have to average 28,000 a month or more — a monthly clip which would be 22% higher than the final four months of last year.

That's not impossible, given how horrid 2010 was, but it seems doubtful.