Reflecting strength across most of the country, the Commerce Department released a report on Wednesday showing that new home sales in the U.S. increased by much more than expected in the month of December.
The report said new home sales jumped 10.8 percent to an annual rate of 544,000 in December from the revised November rate of 491,000.
Economists had expected new home sales to climb 2 percent to a rate of 500,000 from the 490,000 originally reported for the previous month.
With the much bigger than expected, new home sales reached their highest annual rate since hitting 545,000 last February.
The Commerce Department noted that the annual rate of new home sales in December is also up by 9.9 percent compared to 495,000 in the same month a year ago.
The sharp monthly increase in new home sales was partly due to strength in the Midwest, where sales soared by 31.6 percent to a rate of 75,000.
New home sales in the West and Northeast also surged up by 21.0 percent and 20.8 percent, respectively, while sales in the South edged up by 0.4 percent.
The report also said the median sales price of new houses sold in December was $288,900, down 2.7 percent from $297,000 in November and down 4.3 percent from $302,000 a year ago.
The estimate of new houses for sale at the end of December was 237,000, representing 5.2 months of supply at the current sales rate.
The Commerce Department also said an estimated 501,000 new homes were sold in 2015, reflecting a 14.5 percent increase from the 437,000 sold in 2014.
Thursday morning, the National Association of Realtors is scheduled to release a separate report on pending home sales in December. Pending sales are expected to climb by 0.8 percent.
A pending home sale is one in which a contract was signed but not yet closed. Normally, it takes four to six weeks to close a contracted sale.
The material has been provided by InstaForex Company – www.instaforex.com