WASHINGTON – Sales of new single-family homes rose 16.2 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted rate of 981,000 houses per year from the revised March rate of 884,000 per year, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today. But they remained 10.6 percent below the April 2006 rate of 1.097 million homes per year.
The month-over-month increase – the first since December and the largest in 14 years – far exceeded analysts’ projections.
A 1.0-percent increase, to 860,000 homes per year from 858,000 in March, was the median projection of 72 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News; their estimates ranged from 800,000 to 940,000.
The median sales price declined to $229,100 in April, 11.1 percent below March’s $257,600 median price and 10.9 percent below the April 2006 median of $257,000.
But the nation’s seasonally adjusted inventory continued to shrink from its end-of-July peak of 573,000 new houses on the market. At the end of April, the new-home inventory was 538,000 homes, 1.5 percent fewer than the 546,000 for sale at the end of March and 4.8 percent fewer than the 565,000 at the end of April 2006.
That left the nation with a 6.5-month supply of new houses at the current pace of sales, the lowest level this year and a marked decline from the 8.1 months’ worth of unsold homes at the end of March, but still above the nation’s 6.2-month supply at the end of April 2006.
The report appeared to confirm the forecast of Tim Eller, CEO of Centex Corp., the nation’s third-largest homebuilder. “Given the affordability issues we face, given the mortgage issues that we face, there’s going to be more pressure on pricing than anything else,” he said in a conference call this month, according to Bloomberg News.
In the Northeast, the rate of new single-family home sales increased 3.8 percent to 83,000 per year from March’s 80,000 houses per year. The April level represented a 43.1-percent increase from the year-ago rate of 58,000 units per year.
The region’s inventory declined to 50,000 new houses on the market at the end of April – a 7.2-month supply – from 52,000 at the end of March and 53,000 at the end of April 2006.
Among regions, the South and West also showed month-over-month increases in sales but only the Northeast showed a year-over-year gain. Compared with April 2006, sales fell in 28.1 percent in the Midwest, 25.4 percent in the West and 3.4 percent in the South.
Additional information, including the full New Residential Sales Report, is available at www.census.gov/newhomesales.
