After reporting a sharp increase in U.S. new home sales in the previous month, the Commerce Department released a report on Wednesday showing new home sales saw continued growth in the month of October.<\/p>\n
The report said new home sales rose by 0.4 percent to an annual rate of 745,000 in October after spiking 7.1 percent to a downwardly revised rate of 742,000 in September. <\/p>\n
Economists had expected new home sales to decrease by 1.3 percent to an annual rate of 790,000 from the 800,000 originally reported for the previous month.<\/p>\n
New home sales in the Midwest surged up by 11.0 percent to a rate of 81,000, while new home sales in the South edged up by 0.2 percent to a rate of 450,000.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, new home sales in the Northeast plunged by 11.8 percent to a rate of 30,000 and new home sales in the West slid by 1.1 percent to a rate of 184,000.<\/p>\n
The Commerce Department also said the median sales price of new houses sold in October was $407,700, up 0.7 percent from $404,700 in September and up 17.5 percent from $346,900 a year ago.<\/p>\n
The estimate of new houses for sale at the end of October was 389,000, representing 6.3 months of supply at the current sales rate.<\/p>\n
On Monday, the National Association of Realtors released a separate report showing an unexpected increase in existing home sales in the month of October.<\/p>\n
NAR said existing home sales climbed 0.8 percent to an annual rate of 6.34 million in October after spiking by 7.0 percent to a rate of 6.29 million in September.<\/p>\n
The continued increase surprised economists, who had expected existing home sales to slump by 1.4 percent to a rate of 6.20 million. <\/p>\n