Dive Brief:

• The numbers are fairly clear — a December sales pace of 414,000 per year for newly built homes and a decrease from November — but what it means and how much to make of it are much less clear.
• Some blame cold weather for the drop from November's pace of 445,000, which had been revised down by 19,000 from initial reports.
• Others suggest it is evidence that the housing recovery celebrated for helping to pull up overall economic numbers is not as solid as those in the industry want to believe it is.

Dive Insight:

There are several pieces to the housing sales puzzle, including mortgage interest rates, the rate at which prices have risen in recent months, and whether builders are chasing sales that will not hold up to their pace in the first part of 2013. There is also the matter of job creation and at what wages jobs are coming back, because underemployed people do not form households and buy homes.