The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported Tuesday morning that sales of new homes in June came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 482,000, a decrease of 6.8% from the downwardly revised May rate of 517,000 and an increase of 8.1% compared with the June 2014 rate of 408,000. The consensus estimate from a survey of economists expected a rate of around 550,000.
The revision to the May rate subtracted 17,000 from the month’s total.
At the peak in 2005, new home sales posted a seasonally adjusted annual rate of nearly 1.4 million.
The Census Bureau also reported that the median sales price for new homes sold in June slipped to $281,800 and the average sales price was $328,700. At the end of June, the number of new homes for sale represented a supply of 5.4 months at the current sales rate.
In June, 57% of the estimated 45,000 monthly sales were for homes priced at less than $300,000. That represents a three-point increase compared with May sales. Sales of homes priced between $300,000 and $399,999 slipped from 21% of all May sales to 18% of June sales. Sales of homes in the range of $400,000 to $499,999 rose from 10% to 12%, and they slipped from 9% to 8% for homes sold in a range of $500,000 to $749,999. Home sales for properties price above $750,000 were flat month over month.
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