New Home Sales down 14.7% for December 44.8% for 2008
By: Dennis Norman
Today the U.S. Department of Commerce released new home sales data for December 2008. This report, the last for the year, continued the downward trend of the prior reports.
Sales of new homes for December dropped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 331,000 homes, down from 388,000 in November. At 331,000 homes for the year that is a drop of 44.8% from 2007 sales of 600,000 homes.
Median sales prices of new homes sold in December 2008 was $206,500 which is down 6.7% from November’s median price of $220,400. The estimated number of new homes for sale at the end of December was 357,000 homes, down from 374,000 homes at the end of November, which is about the only positive news in this report.
Even with the decreased inventory the number of months to absorb this inventory increased to over a year at 12.9 months. This increase from the 11.5 month supply in November is a result of a lower number of sales.
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