WASHINGTON — Sales of new homes rose 6.2 percent in October
on strong results in the South, the Commerce Department estimated Wednesday.
The rise in U.S. new-home sales to a seasonally adjusted
annual rate of 430,000 was well above the 390,000 pace that economists surveyed
by MarketWatch had expected.
Sales rose 23.2 percent in the South. By contrast, monthly
sales fell by 20 percent in the Midwest, and by 5.1 percent in both the
Northeast and the West.
“On the surface, one would have assumed that the surge
in sales activity was induced by the rush of first-time home buyers trying to
get ahead of the originally scheduled end of the first-time homebuyers’ tax
credit at the end of October,” wrote Millan Mulraine, economics strategist
with TD Securities, in a research note. “However, given the lopsided
regional dimension to the increase in home sales we are not entirely convinced
that this was the only story.”
The government cautions that its housing data are subject to
large sampling and other statistical errors, with large revisions common. It
can take up to six months for a trend in sales to emerge.
The pace of new-home sales in September also was revised
slightly higher, to a level of 405,000. New-home sales are up 5.1 percent
compared with a year ago, the government’s data showed.
The supply of homes on the market fell to 239,000 in
October, representing a 6.7-month supply.
The median sales price in October hit $212,200, compared
with $213,200 in the prior year.
Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
