HARDI’s monthly TRENDS report shows average sales for HARDI distributor members increased by 15.9% in June. The average annualized growth for the 12 months through June 2016 was 7.2%. This annual growth rate, HARDI noted, has generally remained within the 6% to 7% range for most of the past two years.

“The strong sales this month helped push the annualized growth to more than 7% for only the second time in the past 24 months,” HARDI Market Research and Benchmarking Analyst Brian Loftus said. “It was warmer than normal across much of the country and some systems had their first chance to stumble after the slow start to the cooling season.”

HARDI Senior Economist Connor Lokar added: “The results are consistent with other consumer, residential or nonresidential building reports. Existing and new-home sales are doing well through the midpoint of the year. Housing starts overall are growing at a near-double-digit pace with single-family outperforming multifamily.”

The Days Sales Outstanding is now at 49.8. “The DSO has traced a familiar pattern the past few calendar years,” Loftus said. “It ticked up unexpectedly this month. We will monitor to see if the move is a reflection of the strong sales activity.”