U.S. New Home Sales Show Significant Rebound In November

(RTTNews) - After reporting a sharp pullback by new home sales in the U.S. in the previous month, the Commerce Department released a report on Monday showing a significant rebound by new home sales in the month of November.

The Commerce Department said new home sales surged by 5.9 percent to an annual rate of 664,000 in November after plunging by 14.8 percent to a revised rate of 627,000 in October.

Economists had expected new home sales to spike by 6.6 percent to an annual rate of 650,000 compared to the rate of 610,000 originally reported for the previous month.

The rebound by new home sales reflected sharp increases in the Midwest and South, where new home sales soared by 17.3 percent and 13.9 percent, respectively.

On the other hand, new home sales in the West dove by 7.5 percent and new home sales in the Northeast plummeted by 41.0 percent.

The report also said the median sales price of new houses sold in November was $402,600, down 5.4 percent from $425,600 and down 6.3 percent from $429,600 in the same month a year ago.

The estimate of new houses for sale at the end of November was 490,000, which represents 8.9 months of supply at the current sales rate. The months of supply is down from 9.2 in October but up from 8.8 in November 2023.

Last Thursday, the National Association of Realtors released a separate report showing another substantial increase by existing home sales in the month of November.

NAR said existing home sales spiked by 4.8 percent to an annual rate of 4.15 million in November after surging by 3.4 percent to an annual rate of 3.96 million in October. Economists had expected existing home sales to jump by 2.8 percent to an annual rate of 4.07 million.

With the much bigger than expected increase, existing home sales reached their highest level since hitting an annual rate of 4.22 million in March.