New Home Sales Drop 14.7% in December

[briann]

http://www.123jump.com/economy-story/New-Home-Sales-Drop-14.7-in-December/31244/

Good or Bad news... depending upon how you look at it.

Sales of new one-family houses in December 2008 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 331,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.This is 14.7% below the revised November of 388,000 and is 44.8% below the December 2007 estimate of 600,000.

 
The following is the unedited transcript of the news release from the U.S. Department of Commerce.


Sales of new one-family houses in December 2008 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 331,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.This is 14.7 percent (±13.9%)* below the revised November of 388,000 and is 44.8 percent (±10.8%) below the December 2007 estimate of 600,000.

The median sales price of new houses sold in December 2008 was $206,500; the average sales price was $246,900. The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of December was 357,000. This represents a supply of 12.9 months at the current sales rate. An estimated 482,000 new homes were sold in 2008. This is 37.8 percent (±2.7%) below the 2007 figure of 776,000.


Available at:

http://www.census.gov/const/newressales.pdf