After reporting an unexpected jump in U.S. new home sales in the previous month, the Commerce Department released a report on Tuesday showing a substantial pullback in new home sales in the month of April.
The Commerce Department said new home sales plunged by 11.4 percent to an annual rate of 569,000 in April from an upwardly revised 642,000 in March.
Economists had expected new home sales to drop to a rate of 602,000 from the 621,000 originally reported for the previous month.
The upwardly revised figure for March reflected the highest rate of new home sales since it reached 727,000 in October of 2007.
The bigger than expected pullback in new home sales was partly due to a steep drop in the West, where new home sales plummeted by 26.3 percent to 126,000.
New home sales in the Midwest also slumped by 13.1 percent, while new home sales in the Northeast and South fell by 7.5 percent and 4.0 percent, respectively.
The report also said the median sales price of new houses sold in April was $309,200, down 3.0 percent from $318,700 in March and down 3.8 percent from $321,300 a year ago.
The Commerce Department said the seasonally-adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of April was 268,000, representing a supply of 5.7 months at the current sales rate.
On Wednesday, the National Association of Realtors is scheduled to release a separate report on existing home sales in the month of April.
Existing home sales are expected to dip to an annual rate of 5.68 million in April after jumping to a ten-year high of 5.71 million in March.
by RTT Staff Writer
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