After reporting a sharp increase in U.S. new home sales in the previous month, the Commerce Department released a report on Thursday showing a bigger than expected pullback in new home sales in the month of December.
The report said new home sales plunged by 9.3 percent to an annual rate of 625,000 in December after surging up by 15 percent to a revised rate of 689,000 in November.
Economists had expected new home sales to slump to a rate of 679,000 from the 733,000 originally reported for the previous month.
Even with the downward revision, the annual rate of new home sales in November was the highest since October of 2007.
Additionally, the Commerce Department noted an estimated 608,000 new homes were sold in 2017, representing an 8.3 percent jump compared to the 561,000 sold in 2016.
The bigger than expected monthly decrease in new home sales reflected declines in sales in all four regions of the country.
The report also said the median sales price of new houses sold in December was $335,400, up 0.1 percent from $334,900 in November and up 2.6 percent from $327,000 a year ago.
The estimate of new houses for sale at the end of December was 295,000, representing 5.7 months of supply at the current sales rate.
A separate report released by the National Association of Realtors on Wednesday showed existing home sales also pulled back by more than anticipated in the month of December.
NAR said existing home sales tumbled by 3.6 percent to an annual rate of 5.57 million in December after jumping by 5.1 percent to a revised 5.78 million in November.
Economists had expected existing home sales to drop to a rate of 5.70 million from the 5.81 million originally reported for the previous month.
The bigger than expected decrease came after existing home sales jumped to the highest rate in nearly eleven years in November.
The material has been provided by InstaForex Company – www.instaforex.com
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