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New home sales squeak out weak gain in October | Cross River Real Estate

Sales of new homes in the United States printed at an annual rate of 458,000 for the month of October, up 0.7% from September.

This tepid gain was saved from being a decline by a surprising jump in sales in the Midwest, which saw 15.8% gains, and better than usual gains in the northeast of 7.7% month-over-month.

“The slight rise in new home sales in October is somewhat disappointing, as it is more of the same of what we’ve seen throughout 2014 – tepid growth in housing constrained by a slowly recovering economy,” said Quicken Loans vice president Bill Banfield.

October’s gain is 1.8% above the October 2013 estimate of 450,000.

But that month-over-month gain was only achieved because September’s new home sales figure was dramatically revised downward from 467,000 to 453,000.

Dragging down new home sales was the West and South, which saw a -2.7% decline and -1.9% decline, respectively.

The imbalance there is due to the fact that the West and the South are vastly larger housing markets compared to the Midwest and Northeast.

The median sales price of new houses sold in October 2014 was $305,000, while the average sales price was $401,100.

The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of October was 212,000. This represents a supply of 5.6 months at the current sales rate.