New home sales back to near all-time lows

Can it possibly get any worse for the homebuilders? Apparently so, given the most recent data on new home sales as reported(.pdf) by the Census Bureau a short time ago.
The December rate of 342,000 units is the third worst monthly total on record - only January and March of last year were worse at 329,000 and 332,000, respectively.

After emerging from the recession sometime last summer (according to most economists), last month's total was down 75 percent from the peak in 2005 and, in population-adjusted terms, 26 percent below the pre-2009 all-time low that occurred in 1981.