Despite the numbers being down, NAHB is expecting that new-home sales will rise 18 percent in 2012 and families will be packing up to move into new homes.
“December’s small decline in new-home sales follows three consecutive months of gains and means the fourth quarter was still stronger than the third,” said Bob Nielsen, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders and a home builder from Reno, Nevada. “The bottom line is that, while 2011 was the worst year for new-home sales on record, signs of gradual improvement began to emerge near the end of the year across a growing number of markets. This nascent recovery should continue to gain strength in the year ahead as more buyers take advantage of the very good deals that out there for newly built homes.”
NAHB attributes the decline to a 10.1 percent decrease in sales in the South, the nation's largest housing market.
Despite decreasing numbers in newly built home sales, Freddie Mac announced in its Primary Mortgage Market Survey ended 2011 with a 3.98 percent increase.
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