Sales of new single-family homes rose 6.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 433,000 last month, led by the South and Midwest, the government reported Friday. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected an April sales pace of 429,000, compared with an originally estimated rate of 384,000 in March. On Friday, the U.S. Commerce Department revised March's sales pace to 407,000. Economists caution over reading too much into a single monthly home-sales report. In April, the confidence interval for sales was plus or minus 15.9%. Despite a pick up, April's sales pace was below the year-earlier rate of 452,000. Home sales have been restrained over the past year by rising prices as well as low inventory, economists say. Data details show that April's sales pace rose about 47% in the Midwest and 3% in the South. Meanwhile, the pace was unchanged in the West and dropped 27% in the Northeast. The median sales price hit $275,800 in April, down 1.3% from a year earlier. The supply of new homes on the U.S. market fell to 5.3 months at the April sales pace from 5.6 months in March.
Source: Marketwatch
Source: Marketwatch
