New home sales dropped 12.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 276,000 last month, down from a downwardly revised 315,000 in June, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Sales year-over-year fell 32.4%.
Commerce started tracking new home sales in 1963.
Sales were forecast to tick higher to an annual rate of 334,000 in July, according to a consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Briefing.com.
"The report shows the housing industry is still nursing a bad hangover," said Mitchell Hochberg of Madden Real Estate Ventures in New York. "With shadow inventory, rising foreclosures, little job growth and more stringent access to credit, weak sales will persist and the industry's headache will linger."
Home sales had soared in March and April as homebuyers rushed to sign contracts ahead of the April 30 deadline for the $8,000 tax credit. But sales plummeted in May, the first month after the incentive expired, to an annual rate of 281,000. The pace only improved modestly in June.
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