The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported Wednesday morning that sales of new homes in October rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 495,000, an increase of 10.7% from the downwardly revised September rate of 447,000 and an increase of 4.9% compared with the October 2014 rate of 472,000. The consensus estimate from a survey of economists expected a rate of around 499,000.
The revision to the September rate dropped 21,000 from the month’s total. At the peak in 2005, new home sales posted a seasonally adjusted annual rate of nearly 1.4 million.
The Census Bureau also reported that the median sales price for new homes sold in October fell by more than $15,000 from $296,900 in September to $281,500, and the average sales price rose by almost $2,000 to $366,000. At the end of October the number of new homes for sale totaled 226,000 and represented a supply of 5.5 months at the current sales rate.
In October, 54% of the estimated 41,000 monthly sales were for homes priced at less than $300,000. The percentage is 3 points higher than the September report. Sales of homes priced between $300,000 and $399,999 rose by 1 point to 21% of all sales. Sales of homes in the range of $400,000 to $499,999 fell from 19% of all sales to 10%, and sales remained flat month-over-month at 8% for homes sold in a range of $500,000 to $749,999. Home sales for properties priced above $750,000 rose by 2 percentage points and accounted for 7% of all new home sales in October.
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