US Census Bureau and HUD released their June 2009 New Residential Sales (New Home Sales) today and the news is generally positive, exceeding expectations but upon further analysis, doesn’t mean much yet and also confirms how weak the upper end is:

Number of sales

>Sales of new one-family houses in June 2009 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 384,000, according to estimates
released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 11.0
percent (±13.2%)* above the revised May rate of 346,000, but is 21.3 percent (±11.4%) below the June 2008 estimate of
488,000.

Prices

>The median sales price of new houses sold in June 2009 was $206,200; the average sales price was $276,900. The
seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of June was 281,000. This represents a supply of 8.8
months at the current sales rate.

Inventory is down 4.1% from last month and 35.6% from June 2008.

The high end market share is getting hammered though.

In June 2008, 4.4% of new home sales were higher than $750,000
In June 2009, 2.8% of new home sales were higher than $750,000

The 2009 figure is much weaker than that considering overall new sales have fallen 21.3% over the same period possibly bringing many of the 2008 $750,000+ sales below the $750,000 threshold.

It’s all about new construction and jumbo credit.

UPDATE: Floyd Norris says this is the worst new home sale results by far since the metric was first tracked in 1963.