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New home sales surge
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January 6, 1999: 10:29 a.m. ET
November 7.6 percent increase well above economists' estimates
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WASHINGTON (CNNfn) - Sales of new one-family homes soared in November, up 7.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 965,000, the Commerce Department says.
The increase from October's revised annual rate of 897,000 was far above the 3.2 percent gain predicted in a consensus of economists' estimates.
The annual rate as of November is 10.3 percent above the November 1997 rate of 875,000.
Despite the surprisingly strong sales figure, Treasury markets turned higher. After the 10 a.m. EST release, the 30-year bond was up 2/32 to 100-22/32, yielding 5.20 percent. The bond was down 3/32 before the release of the data.
The median price of new homes sold in November was $148,700, down slightly from $150,000 in October. The mean sales price was $175,400, compared with $184,900 in October.
At the end of November, the seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale was 292,000, a 3.7 months supply at current sales rates.
For the first 11 months of 1998, 823,000 houses were actually sold, a 9.2 percent increase from the 753,000 houses sold through the end of November 1997.
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