New US home sales stagnating
Sales of newly built homes rose 3.3 percent in April, in another sign that the long-suffering sector was on the road to recovery.
The US Commerce Department reported today that new home sales dipped 0.3 percent in October to a seasonally adjusted 368,000-unit annual pace, Reuters reported.
The Commerce Department also revised its September estimate for the annual sales rate downward to 369,000 from 389,000.
The new data shows there’s not much upward swing in new home purchases, according to Reuters.
Purchases in the last six months have climbed 2.8 percent, showing limited job growth and access to credit are still restraining the residential real estate market.
"Despite the downward revisions, new home sales and the housing market in general are on the right path," Yelena Shulyatyeva, an economist BNP Paribas in New York, told Reuters. "It's just that progress will be slow."
Sales did increase in the Midwest, rising by 62.2 percent, and the West, rising by 8.8 percent, Bloomberg News reported. Purchases slid 32.3 percent in the Northeast.
“Better job growth is the key factor,” Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James & Associates Inc. in St. Petersburg, Fla., told Bloomberg News. “We really have a lot of ground to make up from the recession.”
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