2022.05.2414:51:00UTC+00U.S. New Home Sales Plunge To Two-Year Low In April

Extending the sharp pullback seen over the past several months, new home sales in the U.S. saw a substantial decrease in the month of April, the Commerce Department revealed in a report on Tuesday.

The report showed new home sales plunged by 16.6 percent to an annual rate of 591,000 in April after tumbling by 10.5 percent to a revised rate of 709,000 in March.

Economists had expected new home sales to slump 1.7 percent to a rate of 750,000 from the 763,000 originally reported for the previous month.

With the much bigger than expected decrease, new home sales dropped to their lowest annual rate since hitting 582,000 in April of 2020.

New home sales showed notable declines in all four regions of the country, with a 19.8 percent plunge in new home sales in the South leading the way lower.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said the median sales price of new houses sold in April was $450,600, up 3.6 percent from $435,000 in March and up 19.6 percent from $376,600 a year ago.

The estimate of new houses for sale at the end of April was 444,000, which represents 9.0 months of supply at the current sales rate. The months of supply is up sharply from 6.9 at the end of March. Last Thursday, the National Association of Realtors released a separate report showing a significant decrease in existing home sales in the month of April.

NAR said existing home sales tumbled 2.4 percent to an annual rate of 5.61 million in April after plunging by 3.0 percent to a revised rate of 5.75 million in March. Economists had expected existing home sales to decrease by 0.7 percent.

With the bigger than expected slump, existing home sales dropped to their lowest annual rate since June of 2020.