March 23, 2012
The Post headlined an article on the release of existing homes sales data for February, “housing report disappoints as existing home sales dip in February.” It’s not clear why anyone would have been disappointed. The 4.59 million annual sales rate reported for February was below the 4.63 million rate now reported for January, but above the 4.57 million rate that had been reported before the revision.
Also, these monthly numbers are highly erratic. The difference between January and February numbers are well within any reasonable margin of error. The same is the case with the monthly price data. The fact that median price for February 2012 was 0.3 percent higher than the median price for February 2011 is virtually meaningless as this can easily be reversed with next month’s numbers, and in fact will be unless prices jump by 2 percent.
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