The Big Picture has a good post about cancellations of new home sales. He cites National Association of Realtors data that cancellations are now running 38% of gross sales, up from 26% a year ago an 18% in the first half of 2005. The official government data on home sales don’t capture this, so the numbers we’ve shown overstate the actual numbers of sales.
Business Strategy Implications: Be careful if you’re in the housing construction food chain. 2007 is not the year of recovery, though I think it will be the year that housing stops getting worse–sometime in 2007.