WASHINGTON – Sales of new single-family homes nationwide fell in January for the sixth consecutive month, to their lowest level since February 1995, 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 last month fell to a seasonally adjusted rate of 588,000 units per year, a decrease of 2.8 percent from a December pace of 605,000 units per year that was 0.2 percent higher than previously reported. (READ MORE) Compared with the January 2007 rate of 890,000 houses per year, sales fell 33.9 percent.

Analysts had expected the sales pace would fall to 600,000 units per year from the initially reported December level of 604,000 homes per year, based on the median estimate from a survey of 70 economists by Bloomberg News. December sales of new houses nationwide fell 4.0 percent from their level the month before, rather than the 4.7 percent of the Census Bureau’s initial estimate, today’s revised figures show.

The median price of new houses sold nationwide in January fell to $216,000, a decrease of 10.9 percent from December’s $225,600. Compared with January 2007, the median price fell a record 15.1 percent, accelerating from the revised December decline of 9.3 percent.

Their median time on the market was 6.7 months, an increase of 8.1 percent from December’s 6.2 months and 40.0 percent from January 2007’s median time of 4.8 months.

The nation’s new-home inventory shrank to a seasonally adjusted 483,000 unsold homes at the end of January, a 2.2-percent decrease from December’s 494,000 unsold houses and a 10.4-percent decrease from the year-ago inventory of 539,000 homes nationwide. At the current sales pace, however, that represented a 9.9-month supply – an increase of 4.2 percent from December’s 9.5-month supply and 37.5 percent from January 2007’s 7.2-month supply.

In the Northeast, sales of new single-family homes fell to a seasonally adjusted January rate of 52,000 houses per year, a decrease of 10.3 percent from the month before and 16.1 percent from the same month a year ago. The region’s inventory of new houses for sale at the end of the month shrank to 45,000, a decrease of 4.3 percent from December’s 47,000-home inventory and 18.2 percent from the region’s January 2007 inventory of 55,000 houses.

Sales also fell last month in the Midwest (-7.6 percent) and the South (-2.4 percent) but rose in the West (+2.2 percent). Compared with a year ago, January sales fell in every region.

“New-home sales will keep falling deeper and deeper into the red,” Lindsey Piegza, an analyst at FTN Financial in New York, told Bloomberg News. “There’s a lot of inventory that builders have to clear out. Home prices will keep declining.”

Sales and prices of existing homes also fell last month, except in the Northeast, where prices rose 6.3 percent compared with December, the National Association of Realtors said on Monday. (READ MORE.)

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.