U.S. New Home Sales Unexpectedly Tumble To Seven-Month Low In June

(RTTNews) - New home sales in the U.S. unexpectedly showed a sharp pullback in the month of June, according to a report released by the Commerce Department on Friday, with sales falling to their lowest level in seven months.

The report said new home sales tumbled 6.8 percent to an annual rate of 482,000 in June from the downwardly revised May rate of 517,000.

The steep drop came as a surprise to economists, who had expected new home sales to edge up to 550,000 from the 546,000 originally reported for the previous month.

With the unexpected decrease, new home sales fell to their lowest annual rate since hitting 446,000 last November.

Despite the monthly drop, the Commerce Department noted new home sales in June were 18.1 percent higher than the estimate of 408,000 in the same month a year ago.

The unexpected decrease in sales in June was partly due to weakness in the West and Midwest, where new home sales fell by 17.0 percent and 11.1 percent, respectively.

New home sales in the South also fell by 4.1 percent, while new home sales in the Northeast surged up by 28.0 percent.

The report also said the median sales price of new houses sold in June was $281,800, up 0.5 percent from $280,500 in May but down 1.8 percent from $287,000 in June of 2014.

The Commerce Department said there were 215,000 new houses for sale at the end of June compared to the 208,000 for sale at the end of the previous month.

The number of houses for sale in June represents 5.4 months of supply at the current sales rate, up from 4.8 months in May.

On Wednesday, the National Association of Realtors released a separate report showing a bigger than expected increase in existing home sales in June.

NAR said existing home sales climbed 3.2 percent to an annual rate of 5.49 million in June from a downwardly revised 5.32 million in May. Economists had expected existing home sales to edge up to an annual rate of 5.40 million.

With the bigger than expected increase, existing home sales are now are their highest level since reaching 5.79 million in February of 2007.