More Mixed Signals in Housing

February has proved to be another month with extremely mixed signals from the housing market. The big news, the tidbit that made all of the headlines, is that new-home sales reached a record low in February, with contracts being signed at an annual pace of 308,000 sales. That's down from a rate of 315,000 in January, and down 13 percent from February 2009.

There are a couple of caveats to that. These figures are seasonally adjusted, but as we've mentioned before, they're not weather adjusted. February was one big snowstorm here in the Northeast, and not surprisingly, new-home sales dropped 20 percent in this region as opposed to February 2009. In the West, which had no serious weather disruptions, February's new-home sales were up 20 percent. (It's also worth mentioning that the "record low" actually means the low dating back to 1963, when such record-keeping began.)

But there was also a curious figure buried in the housing report: Despite the fact that sales have dropped, prices are on the rise. The median price of a new home in February was $220,500, up 6 percent from January's figure. Prices rose more than sales fell, in other words. So new homes are costing more even as they're selling less.