Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

New-Home Sales Slipped in August

A home in Riverview, Fla. Sales in the South usually account for nearly half of new-home sales.Credit...Chris O'Meara/Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of new homes dipped slightly in August from July, but the median price of homes sold during the month rose by a record amount.

New-home sales edged down to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 373,000 in August, a dip of 0.3 percent from July’s revised rate of 374,000, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. That had been the fastest pace since April 2010 when government tax credits were bolstering sales.

Sales in August were up 27.7 percent from the pace a year ago. But even with that gain, new-home sales remained well below the annual pace of 700,000 that economists consider healthy.

The median price of a new home jumped 11.2 percent in August to $256,900, the biggest one-month gain on record.

Image
Credit...The New York Times

The median sales price was up 17 percent compared with August 2011. The $256,900 median price in August was the highest sales price since new homes sold for $262,600 in March 2007, a period when prices were coming down from the peaks reached during the housing boom.

By region of the country, sales rose by the most in the Northeast, climbing 20 percent. Sales were up 1.8 percent in the Midwest and 0.9 percent in the West. But sales in the South, which accounts for nearly half of new-home sales, dropped 4.9 percent.

Robert Kavcic, an economist at BMO Capital Markets, said the August report was “more evidence that a recovery in U.S. housing is taking root.”

Mr. Kavcic said that the drop in sales in the South could have been influenced by disruptions from Hurricane Isaac in August.

The housing market has been making a modest but steady recovery, helped by the Federal Reserve’s efforts to stimulate the economy through lower interest rates. The Fed this month announced a third round of bond buying in an effort to strengthen the economy and improve employment.

Sales of previously occupied homes jumped in August to the highest level since May 2010. On Tuesday, the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index showed home prices increased 1.2 percent in July compared with July 2011.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 5 of the New York edition with the headline: New-Home Sales Slipped In August. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT