Sales of new homes jumped 14% in September to the fastest pace in six months as strong demand helped offset rising prices.
The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that sales of new single-family homes rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 800,000 units last month which was well above what economists had been expecting.
However, the government revised lower its estimates for sales in the previous two months with August now showing a 1.4% decline to a rate of 702,000 units.
The September sales pace was the strongest since sales reached an annual rate of 873,000 in March.
The median price of a new home, the point where half the homes sold for more and half for less, rose to a record $408,800 in September, up 9.5% from a year ago. The average sales prices in September increased to $451,700, up 11.5% from a year ago.
Prices are being pushed higher by strong demand and increases being faced by builders who are grappling with shortages of critical building supplies such as lumber.
“We expect new home sales to move mostly sideways over the rest of 2021 as strong demand and low mortgage rates are tempered by high prices and construction backlogs,” said Nancy Vanden Houten of Oxford Economics.
The report showed that sales rose in all parts of the country in September except for the Midwest where they slipped 1.5%. Sales were up 32.3% in the Northeast, 17.5% in the South and 8.2% in the West.
The report on new home sales followed news last week that sales of existing homes rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.29 million units in September, the strongest pace since January.
Seth Schachner, Managing Director at Strat Americas, talks Disney's taking control of Hulu, Warner Bros. and Discovery's split and how if affects the viewers.
The Tony Awards on Sunday lured 4.85 million viewers to CBS, its largest broadcast audience in six years. CBS says Monday that Nielsen data shows the telecast — hosted by “Wicked” star Cynthia Erivo — scored a 38% increase over last year’s 3.53 million viewers. That’s the largest audience for the Tonys since 2019, when the telecast that year nabbed 5.4 million viewers and “Hadestown” was crowned best new musical. The latest version also had to compete with the second game of the NBA Finals, between the Thunder and Pacers,
After stumbling out of the starting gate in Big Tech’s pivotal race to capitalize on artificial intelligence, Apple tried to regain its footing Monday during a developers conference that focused mostly on incremental advances and cosmetic changes in its technology.
Six weeks before UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down outside a Manhattan hotel last December, Luigi Mangione mused about rebelling against “the deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel” and expressed that killing the executive “conveys a greedy bastard that had it coming."
Shaquille O’Neal and Allen Iverson once clashed on the court in the 2001 NBA Finals, but now the basketball legends are joining forces to revive the Reebok brand they helped make iconic.
Midea is voluntarily recalling about 1.7 million of its popular U and U+ Smart air conditioners because pooled water in the units may not drain fast enough, leading to mold growth.
