Monthly sales of new residential properties saw a more than one-fifth gain from a year earlier. The Northeast again led a month-over-month rise.
During August, sales of
new single-family houses worked out to a seasonally adjusted annual U.S. rate of 552,000.
Turns out that new home sales were better than the 522,000 pace a month earlier. July’s rate was originally reported at 507,000.
The
Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development jointly released the statistics on Thursday.
Compared to a year earlier, the gain was even more spectacular: 22 percent.
New home sales in the Northeast soared a startling 24 percent from July — the biggest month-over-month increase of any region and the fourth consecutive month it led the nation. Still, the seasonally adjusted annual rate of 36,000 in the Northeast remains the slowest pace in the country.
Next was the South, where the sale of new houses climbed more than seven percent to a rate of 319,000 — the strongest pace of sales in the country.
In the West, sales were up five percent to 137,000.
The Midwest was the only region to suffer a decline: nine percent to 60,000.
On an unadjusted basis,
U.S. new home sales totaled 45,000 properties last month.
At the end of last month, there were an estimated 216,000 new houses on the market. Inventory inched up from 215,000 at the end of July and 205,000 at the same point in 2014.
Based on the current rate of sales, it would take 4.7 months to clear out August’s inventory of new homes for sale.
The supply of new properties retreated from 4.9 months the previous month and 5.4 months in the year-prior period.
Last month’s median sales price was $292,700, modestly higher than the $291,700 in the August 2014 report.
The August 2015 average sales price was $353,400, less than the year-earlier’s $356,200.
