Lawler: Net Home Orders and Sales Cancellations of Large Publicly-Traded Home Builders

Note from Bill McBride: The data below via Tom Lawler illustrates the point I’ve made about the Census Bureau overstating sales when cancellation rates are rising. When looking at new home sales, we are interested in net sales, but the Census Bureau reports gross new sales. A simple equation would be:

Sales (net) = Sales (gross) – Cancellations + Sales …