Following the pullback seen in the previous month, the Commerce Department released a report on Tuesday showing that US new home sales climbed 6.8 per cent to an annual rate of 517,000 in April from the revised March rate of 484,000.
Meanwhile, the National Association of Realtors reported Thursday that the median price of an existing home rose to US$219,400 in April, up 8.9 per cdent from the prior year. The supply of homes is “lagging” demand, said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist.
US Home Sales
With the monthly increase in new home sales, the Commerce Department said the annual rate is up by 26.1 perc ent compared to 410,000 in April of 2014.
The rebound in new home sales in April was partly due to notable growth in the Midwest, where new home sales jumped 36.8 per cent to a rate of 78,000.
The Commerce Department also said the median sales price of new houses sold in April was US$297,300, up 4.1 per cent from US$285,500 in March and up 8.3 per cent from US274,500 a year ago.
The number of new 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.
For existing homes, “Housing inventory declined from last year and supply in many markets is very tight, which in turn is leading to bidding wars,” Yun said.
The number of existing homes available for sale dropped almost 1 per cent over the past year, according to NAR.
The sales pace for used homes, meanwhile, fell 3.3 per cent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.04 million, pulling back from a jump higher in March. On Thursday NAR revised March’s rate to 5.21 million. Existing single-family homes priced between US$100,000 and US$250,000 were the largest share of sales, making up 45 per cent of deals.