Sales of new homes in the US in September fell by 10.9% compared with the previous month and amounted to 603 thousand in terms of annual rates, the country’s Department of Commerce said.
The rate of decline has become the highest since April this year.
According to the revised data, 677 thousand houses were sold in August, and not 685 thousand, as previously reported.
Analysts, on average, had expected new home sales to fall to 585,000 last month from the previously announced figure, Trading Economics reports.
Compared to the same month in 2021, the number of new home sales fell by 17.6% (732 thousand new buildings were sold in September last year).
The median price of a new home in the US jumped 13.9% to $470.6 thousand in September.
The number of new buildings put up for sale at the end of last month was 462 thousand, which was the highest figure since 2008. At current sales rates, it would take 9.2 months for all new homes in the US to sell (8.2 months in August and 6.1 months a year ago). Experts traditionally believe that a balanced market corresponds to an indicator of about 6 months.
New properties make up about 10% of the US housing market, but new home sales are recorded as soon as a contract is signed, making them a more relevant indicator of the state of the market.
