Sales of new single-family homes picked up slightly in September, the Census Bureau reported Friday, as the housing market continues its fragile and slow recovery.
New home sales ticked up to 467,000, according to the Census Bureau, but only after August’s sales were revised down from 504,000 to 466,000.
Despite the volatility in the series, there are signs of a slowly improving trend. Sales are up 17 percent over September of last year, and sales year-to-date are up by roughly 2 percent.
The median price for houses sold in the month was $259,000, according to the Census. There were 207,000 homes for sale at the end of the month, a supply of over five months at current sales rates.
New home sales remain at roughly half their pre-housing bubble levels, and a smaller share of total housing sales than is normal historically.
Sales of existing homes increased to 5.2 million in September, the National Association of Realtors reported Tuesday. That represented 2.4 percent monthly growth. Over the year, existing home sales were down by nearly 2 percent, but some of that decline represented falling sales of foreclosed homes, which is a positive sign as U.S. households continue to recover from the housing crash and recession.
Existing home sales were particularly affected by the raise in mortgage rates that followed the Federal Reserve’s announcement that it would slow its Treasury and mortgage-backed securities purchases last summer. In recent weeks, however, rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages have fallen back to last summer’s levels, below 4 percent, as slowing global growth and other factors have pushed rates downward.
