U.S. New Home Sales Show Substantial Rebound In December
(RTTNews) - A report released by the Commerce Department on Thursday showed a substantial rebound in new home sales in the U.S. in the month of December.
The Commerce Department said new home sales spiked by 8.0 percent to an annual rate of 664,000 in December after plunging by 9.0 to an upwardly revised rate of 615,000 in November.
Economists had expected new home sales to surge 9.3 percent to a rate of 645,000 from the 590,000 originally reported for the previous month.
New home sales in the Northeast helped lead the rebound, skyrocketing by 32.0 percent to an annual rate of 33,000 in December.
The report said new home sales in the South and Midwest also soared by 10.6 percent and 9.2 percent, respectively, while new home sales in the West slumped by 3.4 percent.
Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said the median sales price of new houses sold in December was $413,200, down 3.0 percent from $426,000 in November and down 13.8 percent from $479,500 a year ago.
The estimate of new houses for sale at the end of December was 453,000, which represents 8.2 months of supply at the current sales rate. The months of supply is down from 8.8 in November and 8.5 in December 2022.
A separate report released by the National Association of Realtors of last Friday showed an unexpected decrease in U.S. existing home sales in the month of December.
NAR said existing home sales slumped by 1.0 percent to an annual rate of 3.78 million in December after climbing by 0.8 percent to an annual rate of 3.82 million in November. Economists had expected existing home sales to come in unchanged.
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