- Lawrence Yun, the NAR's chief economist
The number of Americans filing new applications for jobless benefits unexpectedly increased last week, but the trend remained consistent with strong labour market momentum. Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs across the country, rose 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 277,000 in the week ended August 15, the Labor Department reported. The gauge has climbed for four straight weeks. The prior week's figure was revised to 273,000 claims from an initially reported 274,000. The four-week moving average of claims, which strips out week-to-week volatility, rose 5,500 to 271,500 last week, still hovering near the lowest level in 15 years.
Separately, sales of existing homes rose in July to the prerecession pace, but low inventory and higher prices threaten to limit those increases heading into the decline. Existing-home sales surged 2% last month from June to a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.59 million, according to the National Association of Realtors. July's figure was the highest since February 2007 and 10.3% higher than a year ago. Total housing inventory, however, dropped 0.4% last month to 2.24 million existing homes available for sale, and was 4.7% lower than a year earlier. At the current pace of sales it would take 4.8 months to exhaust the supply of homes on the market, compared with 5.6 months in the previous year. The median sale price for a previously owned home fell slightly to $234,000 from $236,300 in June.
© Dukascopy Bank SA