By Eric Morath 
 

WASHINGTON--Sales of newly built, single-family fell in December from the prior month. Here are key details from the Commerce Department's report, published Monday:

--U.S. new-home sales decreased 0.4% from November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 694,000 units in December. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expected a sales pace of 730,000 in November.

--The rate of new-home sales in November was revised down to a rate of 697,000 from an initial estimate of 719,000.

--For all of 2019, 681,000 new homes were sold, the most in a year since 2006. The number of homes sold annually has trended up since 2011, but remains well below 1.28 million peak set in 2005 during the housing boom that preceded the financial crisis and recession.

--The number of newly built, single-family homes for sale in December would last 5.7 months at the current pace, down from 7.4 months a year earlier.

--The median sale price of a new home in December was $331,400, up from the same month a year ago, when the sale price was $329,700.

--Monthly data can be volatile and subject to revisions. The December decrease in new-home sales carried a margin of error of plus or minus 15.1 percentage points.

--The housing market improved this year, in part reflecting historically low unemployment and Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts that have made mortgage rates more affordable for some home buyers.

--A copy of the full report is available at: http://www.census.gov/construction/nrs.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 27, 2020 10:15 ET (15:15 GMT)

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