Two very different housing headlines

How are mortgage folks and Realtors supposed to reconcile stories like these two:

“Sales of newly built, single-family homes edged up 1.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 315,000 units in November – the third consecutive monthly gain in new-home sales and the fastest pace of such activity since April”

and

“The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) reported that the number of new foreclosures increased by 21.1% during Q3, as servicers lifted voluntary moratoria implemented in late 2010 and exhausted alternatives to foreclosure for the large inventory of seriously delinquent mortgages working through the loss mitigation process. The increase in new foreclosures and the increase in average time required to complete foreclosures sales has resulted in the number of foreclosures in process increasing to 4.1% of the overall portfolio, or 1,327,077 loans, at the end of the third quarter of 2011” [more]

It’s worth noting is that the fine print on New Home Sales isn’t as rosy as the headlines looked last week, which you’ll see by going here.