New US home sales surged in August. Signed contracts for new single-family homes jumped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 800,000, a 21% from the previous month and 15% above the year-ago level. Nancy Vanden Houten, a lead US economist at Oxford Economics, said the increase “likely overstates any improvement in housing activity. New home sales are prone to heavy revisions. A flat-ish trend in sales, similar to what has been evident all year, seems more likely.”
