New Home Sales

Housing Starts/Building Permits
Privately-owned housing starts in December 2007 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,006,000. This is 14.2 percent below the revised November 2007 estimate of 1,173,000.

November 2007
-7.9 % change

December 2007
-14.2% change

The Commerce Department is expected to report that new home sales dipped 0.3 percent in December from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 645,000 units, according to the consensus forecast of Wall Street economists surveyed by Thomson/IFR. Builders have slashed prices, but many buyers have stayed on the sidelines because they're having trouble getting mortgages and believe prices will continue to fall.

Sales of existing single-family homes plunged in 2007 by the largest amount in 25 years, and median prices fell for the first time in at least four decades, according to the National Association of Realtors .