By Xavier Fontdegloria

Purchases of new single-family houses in the U.S. increased in August for the fourth consecutive month and reached a 14-year high. Here are the main takeaways from the Commerce Department's report released Thursday:

--New home sales rose 4.8% in August compared with July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,011,000.

--The reading is well above economists expectations polled by The Wall Street Journal, who had expected a 0.3% decline to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 898,000.

--August sales were 43.2% above the same month a year earlier.

--July's new home sales were upwardly revised to 965,000 from an earlier estimate of 901,000.

--Monthly new residential sales data is volatile and often revised. August's figures came with a margin of error of 10.5 percentage points.

--The median price of a new home was $312,800, down from $327,000 the same month a year earlier.

--The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of August was 282,000. This represents a supply of 3.3 months at the current sales rate.

Write to Xavier Fontdegloria at xavier.fontdegloria@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 24, 2020 10:25 ET (14:25 GMT)

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