U.S. New-Home Sales Fell More Than Expected in April
May 23 2017 - 10:30AM
Dow Jones News
By Sarah Chaney and Josh Mitchell
WASHINGTON--New-home sales fell sharply in April after reaching
a nine-year high the prior month, a possible sign of weaker demand
after a runup in prices.
Purchases of new, single-family homes--a narrow slice of all
U.S. home sales--fell 11.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of
569,000 in April, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Economists
surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected sales to drop
1%.
New-home sales in March reached a rate of 642,000, the highest
since October 2007. Sales figures are highly volatile month to
month. Over a broader period, the market appears to be stable.
New-home sales climbed 0.5% in April from a year earlier.
At the current sales pace, there was a 5.7 months supply of new
homes on the market in April. There were 268,000 new homes for sale
in April, a level unmatched since July 2009.
The median sale price for a new home sold in April was $309,200,
down from $318,700 in March.
The U.S. housing market picked up steam toward the end of 2016,
momentum that carried into the early months of this year.
The National Association of Realtors reports sales of existing
homes, which account for the bulk of the market, on Wednesday.
A copy of the full report is available at:
http://www.census.gov/construction/nrs.
Write to Sarah Chaney at sarah.chaney@wsj.com and Josh Mitchell
at joshua.mitchell@wsj.com.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 23, 2017 10:15 ET (14:15 GMT)
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