New Home Sales, which measures signed contracts on new homes, were down 12.8% in July, which was much less than the unchanged reading expected. But that does not tell the whole story. The June report, which was already up 7%, was revised significantly higher by 82,000 sales to a 12-year high. When taking the revision into account, sales were only down 1.7% after a blockbuster report. Sales are up 4.3% from last year.