U.S. New Home Sales Edge Up By 0.7% In October

(RTTNews) - New home sales in the U.S. saw a modest increase in the month of October, according to a report released by the Commerce Department on Wednesday.

The report said new home sales rose by 0.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 458,000 in October from the revised September rate of 455,000.

Economists had expected new home sales to climb 0.6 percent to a rate of 470,000 from the 467,000 originally reported for the previous month.

Peter Boockvar, managing director at the Lindsey Group, said, "While a sales rate of 458,000 is at the best level since 2008, it remains 67% below the peak and 33% less than the 35-year average."

"On one hand, there is a lot of runway for improvement," he added. "On the other, this is what you get when bubbles pop."

The Commerce Department said the median sales price of new houses sold in October was $305,000, up 16.5 percent from $261,700 in September and up 15.4 percent from $264,300 a year ago.

Additionally, the report said there were 212,000 new houses for sale at the end of October compared to 210,000 at the end of the previous month.

The housing inventory represents 5.6 months of supply at the current sales rate, up from 5.5 months of supply in September.

Last Thursday, the National Association of Realtors released a separate report showing an unexpected increase in existing home sales in the month of October.

NAR said existing home sales climbed 1.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.26 million in October from an upwardly revised 5.18 million in September. Economists had expected existing home sales to edge down to 5.15 million. With the unexpected increase, existing home sales reached their highest level since a matching rate in September of 2013.