New Residential Sales Hit 16-Year Low

MBA (4/25/2008 ) Sorohan, Mike
So much for the spring home-buying season.
Sales of new single-family homes in March reached a 16-year low, falling to a seasonally adjusted rate of just 526,000, according to the Bureau of the Census and HUD. The figure represented an 8.5 percent drop from the revised February rate of 575,000 and was 36.6 percent lower than a year ago, when the rate was 830,000. The last time sales were this low was October 1991.

The numbers for prices and inventory didn’t fare better: hampered by rising inventory, the median sales price of new single-family homes fell by 13.3 percent to $227,600 from $244,200, the highest single monthly drop since July 1970; the average sales price fell to $292,900 from $302,900.

Inventory of new houses for sale, despite cutbacks by home builders, rose to 468,000, representing a supply of 11.0 months at the current sales rate.

Sales fell in all regions of the country: by 19.4 percent in the Northeast; 12.9 percent in the West; 12.9 percent in the Midwest and 4.6 percent in the South.

The new home sales figures come on the heels of a 2 percent drop in existing home sales reported earlier this week by the National Association of Realtors.