By Xavier Fontdegloria 
 

Purchases of new single-family houses in the U.S. decreased in September, breaking a four-month streak of gains. Here are the main takeaways from the Commerce Department's report released Monday:

--New home sales fell 3.5% in September compared with August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 959,000.

--The reading missed economists expectations polled by The Wall Street Journal, who had expected a 1% increase to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.02 million.

--September sales were 32.1% above the same month a year earlier.

--August new home sales were downwardly revised to 994,000 from an earlier estimate of 1,011,000.

--Monthly new residential sales data is volatile and often revised. September's figures came with a margin of error of 19.9 percentage points.

--The median price of a new home was $326,800, up from $315,700 the same month a year earlier.

--The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of September was 284,000. This represents a supply of 3.6 months at the current sales rate.

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

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 26, 2020 10:21 ET (14:21 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.