More bad news for housing

Posted Feb 28th 2007 3:45PM by Michael Fowlkes
Filed under: D.R.Horton (DHI), Toll Brothers (TOL)

Just when you think you may have seen the worst of times for home sales we get a news report out today to bring you back to reality. A new report today showed the biggest decline in new home sales in the last 13 years.

According to a new government report today January witnessed a massive 16.6% decline in the sales of new homes in America. The last time we saw a fall of this amount was way back in January 1994 when sales fell by a whopping 23.8%.

Things looked to be getting a little brighter for the housing market yesterday when we were given some positive data on existing home sales which put up better than expected gains last month. During January we saw the biggest rise in two years in existing home sales with a 3.0% rise from December.

Homebuilders have been taking a hit today. DR Horton Inc. (NYSE: DHI) is trading down 1.6%, Toll Brothers Inc. (NYSE: TOL) is down 2.1%, Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. (NYSE: HOV) is currently down 2.4% and Pulte Homes Inc. (NYSE: PHM) has sold off 1.7%.

Tags: Hovnanian, Pulte Homes, PulteHomes