U.S. New Home Sales Spike From Downwardly Revised Level In April

(RTTNews) - The Commerce Department released a report on Friday showing new home sales in the U.S. in the month of April spiked compared to a significantly downwardly revised level in March.

The report said new home sales soared by 10.9 percent to an annual rate of 743,000 in April after jumping by 2.6 percent to a downwardly revised rate of 670,000 in March.

Economists had expected new home sales to tumble by 4.4 percent to a rate of 692,000 from the 724,000 originally reported for the previous month.

With the sharp increase during the month, new home sales surged to their highest annual rate since hitting 788,000 in February of 2022.

The spike by new home sales partly reflected strength in the Midwest, where new home sales skyrocketed by 35.5 percent to an annual rate of 84,000.

New home sales in the South also shot up by 11.7 percent to an annual rate of 478,000, while new home sales in the West jumped by 3.3 percent to an annual rate of 158,000.

On the other hand, the Commerce Department said new home sales in the Northeast plunged by 14.8 percent to an annual rate of 23,000.

The report also said the estimate of new houses for sale at the end of April was 504,000, down 0.6 percent from 507,000 at the end of March but up 8.6 percent from 464,000 a year ago.

The estimate of new houses for sale represents 8.1 months of supply at the current sales rate, down from 9.1 months in March but up from 7.7 months in April 2024.

Additionally, the Commerce Department said the median sales price of new houses sold in April was $407,200, up 0.8 percent from $403,700 in March and up 2.0 percent from $415,300 in the same month last year.

The National Association of Realtors released a separate on Thursday showing existing home sales in the U.S. unexpectedly saw further downside in the month of April.

NAR said existing home sales fell by 0.5 percent to an annual rate of 4.00 million in April after plunging by 5.9 percent to a rate of 4.02 million in March. Economists had expected existing home sales to jump by 2.0 percent to a rate of 4.10 million.