U.S. New Home Sales Spike To Ten-Month High In January

(RTTNews) - The Commerce Department released a report on Friday showing a sharp increase in U.S. new home sales in the month of January.

The report said new home sales spiked by 7.2 percent to an annual rate of 670,000 in January after soaring by 7.2 percent to a revised rate of 625,000 in December.

Economists had expected new home sales to rise to an annual rate of 620,000 from the 616,000 originally reported for the previous month.

With the continued surge, new home sales reached their highest annual rate since hitting 707,000 last March.

The substantial increase in new home sales was largely due to strength in the South, where new home sales skyrocketed by 17.1 percent to an annual rate of 451,000.

On the other hand, new home sales in the Northeast plunged by 19.4 percent, while new home sales in the West and Midwest tumbled by 7.3 percent and 6.9 percent, respectively.

The Commerce Department also said the median sales price of new houses sold in January was $427,500 down 8.2 percent from $465,600 in December and down 0.7 percent from $430,500 a year ago.

The estimate of new houses for sale at the end of January was 439,000, down 2.9 percent from 452,000 at the end of December but up 11.4 percent from 394,000 at the end of January 2022.

The homes for sale represent 7.9 months of supply at the current sales rate compared to 8.7 months in December and 5.7 months a year ago.

On Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors released a separate report showing U.S. existing home sales unexpectedly decreased for the twelfth consecutive month in January.

NAR said existing home sales slid 0.7 percent to an annual rate of 4.00 million in January after tumbling by 2.2 percent to a revised rate of 4.12 million in December.

The continued decline surprised economists, who had expected existing home sales to inch up by 0.1 percent compared to the 1.5 percent slump originally reported for the previous month.