U.S. New Home Sales Unexpectedly Spike To One-Year High In March

A report released by the Commerce Department on Tuesday showed an unexpected spike in U.S. new home sales in the month of March.

The Commerce Department said new home sales surged 9.6 percent to an annual rate of 683,000 in March from a revised rate of 623,000 in February.

Economists had expected new home sales to dip to a rate of 634,000 from the 640,000 originally reported for the previous month.

With the unexpected jump, new home sales reached their highest annual rate since hitting 707,000 in March 2022.

The report said new home sales in the Northeast skyrocketed by 170.8 percent to a rate of 65,000, while new home sales in the West soared by 29.8 percent to a rate of 161,000.

While new home sales in the Midwest also shot up by 6.0 percent to a rate of 71,000, new home sales in the South tumbled by 5.4 percent to a rate of 386,000.

The Commerce Department also said the median sales price of new houses sold in March was $449,800, up 3.8 percent from $433,200 in February and up 3.2 percent from $435,900 a year ago.

The estimate of new houses for sale at the end of March was 432,000, which represents 7.6 months of supply at the current sales rate. The months of supply is down from 8.4 in February but up from 7.0 in March 2022.

Last Thursday, the National Association of Realtors released a separate report showing existing home sales pulled back by more than expected in the month of March.

NAR said existing home sales slumped by 2.4 percent to an annual rate of 4.44 million in March after spiking by 13.8 percent to a revised rate of 4.55 million in February.

Economists had expected existing home sales to decrease to a rate of 4.50 million from the 4.58 million originally reported for the previous month.

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