November’s new home sales flew in the face of low expectations.
According to the Wall Street Journal, citing figures from the Census Bureau, purchases of newly built single-family homes rose 5.2 percent from October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 592,000. It was the largest one-month gain since July.
At the current sales pace, it would take 5.1 months to exhaust the supply of newly built homes on the market at the end of November. The median sale price last month was $305,400, down from $317,000 in November 2015.
Existing home sales in November rose 0.7 percent from October to a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.61 million. Sales of previously owned houses account for 90 percent of home purchases.
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