U.S. New Home Sales Climb To Seven-Year High In May
2015-06-24After reporting a sharp jump in U.S. new home sales in the previous month, the Commerce Department released a report on Tuesday showing that new home sales saw further upside in May to reach their highest level in over seven years.
Economists had expected new home sales to rise to a rate of 525,000 from the 517,000 originally reported for the previous month, reflecting a 1.5 percent increase.
With the bigger than expected increase, new home sales rose to their highest level since hitting a rate of 593,000 in February of 2008.
The Commerce Department also noted that the annual rate of new home sales in May is up by 19.5 percent compared to 457,000 in the same month a year ago.
The continued increase in new home sales in May was partly due to a sharp jump in the Northeast, where sales soared 87.5 percent to a rate of 30,000.
New home sales in the West also climbed by 13.1 percent, while new home sales in the South and Midwest fell by 4.3 percent and 5.7 percent, respectively.
The Commerce Department also said the median sales price of new houses sold in May was $282,800, down 2.9 percent from $291,100 in April and down 1 percent from $285,600 a year ago
The estimate of new houses for sale at the end of May was 206,000, unchanged compared to the number of homes for sale at the end of April.
The number of homes for sale represents 4.5 months of supply at the current sales rate, down from 4.6 months of supply in the previous month.
On Monday, the National Association of Realtors released a separate report showing that existing home sales jumped to their highest level in almost six years in May.
The report said existing home sales surged up by 5.1 percent to an annual rate of 5.35 million in May from an upwardly revised 5.09 million in April. Economists had expected existing home sales to climb to an annual rate of 5.25 million.
With the bigger than expected increase, existing home sales rose to their highest level since reaching 5.44 million in November of 2009.
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