The annual rate of new residential property sales last month climbed to the highest level in more than eight years, with the West leading the way.
New U.S. houses sold during June preliminarily numbered
54,000. The total was the same as the upwardly revised figure for the prior month.
But new home sales have accelerated compared to the same month last year, when there were an downwardly revised 44,000 new houses sold.
The data were jointly reported Tuesday by the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
With seasonal adjustments applied, the annual rate of new home sales preliminarily worked out to 592,000 last month.
That was the highest rate since February 2008, when it stood at 593,000.
The rate climbed from an upwardly revised 572,000 in May and soared from a downwardly revised 472,000 in June 2015.
In the West, an 11 percent month-over-month increase left the annual rate there at 152,000 as of June 2016. The Midwest saw a 10 percent gain to 85,000.
A less than 1 percent decline in the South put the seasonally adjusted annual rate there at 321,000, while a 6 percent drop in the Northeast had the rate there at 34,000.
As of June 30, 2016, there were a seasonally adjusted 244,000 new U.S. houses for sale, up 1 percent from a month earlier and 13 percent higher than a year earlier.
At the current pace of new home sales, it would take 4.9 months to clear out the U.S. inventory. There was a 5.1-month supply in May and a 5.5-month supply in June 2015.
The report indicated that the
median sales price of a new home was $306,700 as of June 2016, while the average sales price was $358,200.
