This Week’s WREN Report: Store Sales & Housing Starts Revised

May 18, 2008  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in on May 2008 • The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) has revised its estimates of home furnishings and furniture stores sales for the first three months of this year.

DOC now estimates home furnishings stores sales for the first quarter to be $11.7 billion, off 7.0 percent from the comparable quarter of 2007. Furniture store sales for the same period in 2008 were $15.2 billion, down 3.0 percent from the same period in 2007.

March 2008 home furnishings stores sales were reported as $4.1 billion, down 10.8 percent from March of 2007. Furniture stores sales in March were $5.1 billion, a decline of 6.1 percent compared with year-earlier results.

Combined year-to-date sales for home furnishings and furniture stores sales were estimated at $26.9 billion, down from $28.2 billion for the first quarter of 2007.

DOC estimates are based on current data from the Monthly Retail Trade Survey, Annual Retail Trade Survey and administrative records.

• Privately-owned housing starts increased 8.2 percent in April, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.032 million, compared with March starts of 954,000. Measured against April 2007 results, starts fell 30.6 percent.

The number of completed privately-owned housing units completed fell 16.0 percent in April to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 1 million units, compared with March figures. Measured against April 2007 results, completions plummeted 34.9 percent.

Housing starts and completions are tracked by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and DOC. In addition to releasing April housing statistics, revised numbers were also released for 2006 and 2007. Housing starts for 2006 and 2007 are now calculated as 1.8 million and 1.4 million, respectively, and completions are 2 million and 1.5 million, respectively, for 2006 and 2007.

Weekly Review of Economic News (WREN) reports are summaries of recently-released economic statistical data that affect the home furnishings industry. WREN reports are compiled by HFB Research Editor Janice Chamberlain.