New-home sales in the US decreased more than estimated in April as prices moved higher, government data showed Thursday.
Single-family home sales fell 6.2% sequentially to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 622,000 units last month, the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development said. The consensus in a Bloomberg poll was for a 660,000 reading.
The median price of new houses sold increased 8% sequentially to $422,500 in April, while the average sales price ticked up 0.7% to $508,800.
"New home prices jumped in April, but at least some of that increase (is) seasonal in nature," Nancy Vanden Houten, lead US economist at Oxford Economics, said in remarks e-mailed to. "Most homebuilders continue to offer incentives to encourage sales, but they are scaling back the use of price cuts to preserve profit margins."
It is common for prices to move higher during the spring selling season, Vanden Houten said.
New-home sales dropped month on month in the Midwest, Northeast, and South. The West logged a double-digit increase, official data showed.
Inventory of new houses for sale grew 1.7% sequentially to 489,000 units at the end of April. That represents a supply of 9.4 months at the current sales rate, up from an 8.7-month supply in March, according to the report.
"We don't anticipate sales to fall further from here, but we don't look for sales to rise much further in the near term either, as higher interest rates and gasoline prices squeeze household budgets," Vanden Houten said.
Last week, government data showed US housing starts decreased less than estimated in April amid a jump in multi-family projects, while the single-unit component declined. A separate report by the National Association of Realtors showed that pending home sales increased more than expected last month as home buyers apparently shrugged off mounting economic uncertainty.
