What happens in 'Vegas?

Home sales up. Oil down. Gasoline under pressure.

DATA SNAP: U.S. New Home Sales Jump 5.7% in Sept

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New Home Sales Sep Aug ! Consensus: !
Overall Sales: 389K 368Kr ! 386K !
Percentage Change: +5.7% -1.3%r ! Actual: !
Months' Supply: 4.5 4.7r ! 389K !
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By Sarah Portlock and Eric Morath

WASHINGTON--Sales of newly built homes in the U.S. rose to its highest level in more than two years, continuing evidence that the housing market is picking up steam amid an otherwise slow recovery.
New single-family home sales increased by 5.7% last month from August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 389,000, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. It is the highest level since April 2010, when first-time home buyers were rushing to qualify for a tax credit.
New home sales were up 27.1% compared to the same month a year ago.
The September results were above expectations. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast an annual sales rate of 386,000.
The number of new homes listed for sale, seasonally adjusted, at the end of September was 145,000, a supply that would take 4.5 months to deplete at the current sales pace. That is the lowest rate since October 2005.
Low inventory and solid sales could encourage home builders to increase construction, which would be a boon to the overall economy.
The median price for a new home in September was $242,400, down from $250,400 the previous month, the Commerce Department said.
However, in a separate measure Tuesday, U.S. home prices rose for the seventh straight month in August, up 0.7% on a seasonally adjusted basis from a month earlier, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's monthly home-price index. That is calculated by using the prices of houses purchased with mortgages backed by government-controlled mortgage companies Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FMCC).
In another positive sign, construction of new homes jumped 15% last month to the highest level since July 2008, the Commerce Department said last week. Compared with a year earlier, new construction was up by nearly 35%.
But the housing market still has a long way to go before it fully recovers. Sales and construction levels are well below pre-bubble levels and tightened credit restrictions make it difficult to secure a mortgage. Many prospective homeowners have too little home-equity to sell their current residence and buy another home.
New-home sales peaked in July 2005, when they hit an annual pace of nearly 1.4 million, and declined sharply in the run up to the financial crisis. Last year's level of 306,000 sales was the lowest on record.
September's new-home sales rose in three out of the four U.S. regions. Sales grew 16.7% in the Northeast, 16.8% in the South and 3.9% in the West, but dropped 37.3% in the Midwest.
A copy of the full report is available at: http://www.census.gov/construction/nrs.

Write to Sarah Portlock at sarah.portlock@dowjones.com and Eric Morath at eric.morath@dowjones.com.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 24, 2012 10:00 ET (14:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2012 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.- - 10 00 AM EDT 10-24-12


Let's go to Las Vegas..... Or Macau!
Watch this one:

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