U.S. New Home Sales Rebound But Remain Below Seven-Year High

(RTTNews) - Following the pullback seen in the previous month, the Commerce Department released a report on Tuesday showing that U.S. new home sales rebounded by more than expected in the month of April.

The report said new home sales climbed 6.8 percent to an annual rate of 517,000 in April from the revised March rate of 484,000.

Economists had expected new home sales to rise to a rate of 509,000 from the 481,000 originally reported for the previous month.

With the monthly increase, the Commerce Department said the annual rate of new home sales is up by 26.1 percent compared to 410,000 in April of 2014.

Nonetheless, the annual rate of new home sales still remains below the seven-year high of 538,000 reported for February.

The rebound in new home sales in April was partly due to notable growth in the Midwest, where new home sales jumped 36.8 percent to a rate of 78,000.

New home sales in the South also increased by 5.8 percent to a rate of 292,000, while new home sales in the West slid by 2.3 percent to a rate of 130,000 and new home sales in the Northeast fell by 5.6 percent to a rate of 17,000.

The Commerce Department also said the median sales price of new houses sold in April was $297,300, up 4.1 percent from $285,500 in March and up 8.3 percent from 274,500 a year ago.

The estimate of new houses for sale at the end of April was 205,000 compared to the 204,000 homes for sale at the end of March.

The number of homes for sale represents 4.8 months of supply at the current sales rate, down from 5.1 months of supply in the previous month.

Last Thursday, the National Association of Realtors released a separate report showing an unexpected drop in existing home sales in the month of April.

NAR said existing home sales fell 3.3 percent to an annual rate of 5.04 million in April from 5.21 million in March, while economists had expected existing home sales to edge up to 5.24 million.