Each month the US Census Bureau publishes preliminary estimates of New One-Family Houses Sold.  The US Census Bureau releases these estimates to provide government and private data users with early measures of  new residential sales activity.   A necessary part of the process of issuing these early data involves the issuance of subsequent revisions.  The revisions to  new one-family houses sold estimates are primarily the result of the replacement of imputed data with data which are reported in subsequent months. New residential sales have larger revisions than other residential construction series. This is due to the fact that most of the new residential construction survey data are based on a permit being issued. Since many homes have a sales contract signed prior to a permit being issued, an estimate must be determined for these sales prior to permit authorization.

The "Range" shows the largest decrease (or smallest increase if no months revised down) and largest increase (or smallest decrease if no months revised up) over the 12 months. The "Average" is the arithmetic mean of all 12 months. Ideally, this would be zero if the positive and negative revisions equaled each other. The "Absolute Average" is the arithmetic mean of the absolute value of the revision. This indicates the average size of revision without regard to sign.
 
 
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Analysis of Revisions for New Residential Sales Excel Format.
 

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Page Last Modified: February 05, 2008