On Tuesday, the Bureau of Census reported that new home sales (a more timely barometer of the housing market than existing home sales) rose 6.8% to 517,000 units (saar) in April, but that followed a 10.0% drop in March. Nevertheless, these sales remain on an uptrend that started in mid-2011. The bad news is that the latest pace of activity isn’t much better than the previous cyclical lows in this series starting back in 1970.

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