[T.S.R:14677] US New Home Sales Plummet To All Time Lows

Capital Market / 08:52 , Jun 24, 2010

The U.S. Census Bureau said that new home sales were at an annual rate of 300,000 in May, down 32.7% from April's pace and much less than expected. It was the lowest month for new home sales since records began in 1963. So far in 2010, new home sales are up 6% from a year ago.  The new home sales, the lowest level on record, was much worse than the 410,000 units that analysts had expected. The sharp decline indicated that buyers left the market as the government's tax credits of up to 8,000 dollars expired in April. The median price of a new home, a typical market price where half of new homes are sold for more and half sold for less, fell to 200,900 dollars in May, down 9.6 percent from a year earlier. This poor data has come on top of weak existing home sales figures earlier in the week. On Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors reported that existing home sales in the U.S. declined by 2.2 percent in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.66 million units. In another piece of housing numbers, the Mortgage Bankers Association said that its index of mortgage applications was down 5.9% last week.