By Maria Martinez

 

Purchases of new single-family houses in the U.S. rose in August, for the second consecutive month. Here are the main takeaways from the Commerce Department's report released Friday:

--New home sales increased 1.5% in August compared with July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 740,000.

--Sales are above the forecast of economists polled by The Wall Street Journal, who expected a 1.7% increase to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 720,000.

--August sales were 24.3% below the same month a year earlier, when sales roles to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 977,000

--New home sales in July were upwardly revised to 729,000 from an earlier estimate of 708,000.

--Monthly new residential sales data is volatile and often revised. August's figures came with a margin of error of 15.1 percentage points.

--The median price of a new home was $390,900 in August, unchanged from July.

--The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of August was 378,000. This represents a supply of 6.1 months at the current sales rate.

 

Write to Maria Martinez at maria.martinez@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 24, 2021 10:34 ET (14:34 GMT)

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