MARKETPLACE
New-Home Sales Plunge To Lowest
Level In 16 1/2 Years
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sales of new homes plunged
in March to the lowest level in 16 1/2 years as housing
slumped further at the start of the spring sales season.
The median price of a new home in March compared with
a year ago fell by the largest amount in nearly four
decades.
The Commerce Department reported Thursday that sales
of new homes dropped 8.5% last month to a seasonally
adjusted annual rate of 526,000 units, slowest sales
pace since October 1991. That follows a downwardly revised
575,000 rate in February.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast March sales
to slow to a 580,000 annual pace from the previously
reported 590,000 reading the month before.
The March median sale price for a new home was 13.3%
below March 2007 and, at $227,600, was down 6.8% from
the month before. The Commerce Department said the year-on-year
percentage decline was the largest since a 14.6% drop
in July 1970.
The dismal news on new-home sales followed earlier
reports showing that sales of existing homes fell 2%
in March. Housing, which boomed for five years, has
been in a prolonged slump the past two years with sales
and home prices falling most sharply in areas of the
country that boomed the most.
For March, sales were down in all regions of the country,
dropping most in the Northeast, a decline of 19.4%.
Sales fell 12.9% in the West, 12.5% in the Midwest and
4.6% in the South.
The inventory of unsold homes dipped 1.1% to 468,000
which, at the current level of sales, would take 11
months to clear, up from February's 10.2 months' supply.
Source: Associated Press,
April 28, 2008
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