By Cristina Roca
Purchases of new single-family houses in the U.S. fell sharply in July. Here are the main takeaways from the Commerce Department’s report published Tuesday:
–New home sales fell 12.6% in July compared with the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 511,000.
–Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal expected home sales to fall 2.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 574,000.
–New home sales in June were downwardly revised to 585,000 from an earlier estimate of 590,000.
–Sales were 29.6% below the same month a year earlier, when they stood at an adjusted annual rate of 726,000.
–Monthly new residential sales data is volatile and often revised. July’s reading came with a margin of error of 16.9 percentage points.
–The median price of a new home rose to $439,400 in July from a revised $414,900 in June.
–The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of July was 464,000. This represents a supply of 10.9 months at the current sales rate.
Write to Cristina Roca at cristina.roca@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 23, 2022 10:28 ET (14:28 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Read More: U.S. July New Home Sales Record Steep Drop