WASHINGTON – Sales of new single-family homes plunged in November for the fourth consecutive month, to the lowest level in more than 12 years, according to the joint report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
New home sales fell 9.0 percent last month, from an October level of 711,000 houses per year that was 2.3 percent lower than previously reported, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 647,000 houses per year. Compared with the November 2006 rate of 987,000 houses per year, sales fell 34.4 percent.
Analysts had expected the sales pace would fall to 717,000 houses per year in November from the previously reported October rate of 728,000 houses per year, based on the median estimate from a survey of 68 economists by Bloomberg News. October sales of new houses nationwide fell 0.7 percent from their level the month before, rather than rising the 1.7 percent of the Census Bureau’s initial estimate (READ MORE), today’s revised figures show.
The median price of new houses sold nationwide last month was $239,100, an increase of 4.2 percent from October’s $229,500 and just 0.4 percent below the November 2006 median price of $240,100.
The new-home inventory shrank to a two-year low of 505,000 unsold houses at the end of November, a decrease of 1.8 percent since the end of October and 6.8 percent compared with the unsold inventory a year ago.
At the current sales pace, however, that represented a 9.3-month – an increase of 5.7 percent from October’s upwardly revised 8.8-month supply and 43.1 percent more than November 2006’s 6.5-month supply.
“Demand for homes continues to wane in an environment of falling prices, tighter credit and increasing mortgage default rates,” Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York, told Bloomberg News. “Prices have a way to go before the marketplace can stabilize.”
In the Northeast, sales of new single-family homes fell to a seasonally adjusted November rate of 46,000 houses per year, a decline of 19.3 percent from the October level of 57,000 per year and 28.1 percent from the November 2006 rate of 64,000 houses per year. The region’s inventory of new houses for sale at the end of last month shrank to 49,000, a decrease of 2.0 percent from October’s 50,000-home inventory and 9.3 percent from the November 2006 inventory of 54,000 houses.
New home sales also fell last month in the Midwest (-27.6 percent) and the South (-6.4 percent), rising only in the West (+4.0 percent); compared with November 2006, sales fell in every region.
Additional information, including the full New Residential Sales report, is available from the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of the Census at www.census.gov/newhomesales.
