New-home sales slow

New single-family home sales slipped 11.8 percent from March to April this year, the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said in a release today, though those sales numbers represented a 6.4 percent gain over April 2003 numbers. The error margin on the 11.8 percent figure is plus or minus 6.9 percent, while the margin of error on the 6.4 percent figure is plus or minus 9.9 percent.

New-home sales dropped 22 percent in the South from March to April, and dropped 5.5 percent in the South from April 2003 to April 2004. The Midwest, with a 10.8 percent gain in home sales from March to April, was the only region to realize an increase during that period.

The median sales price of new houses sold in April was $221,200, up 9.8 percent over the March median sales price of $201,400. And the April average sales price was $270,400, up 3.7 percent over the March average sales price of $260,800. In April 2003 the median sales price of a home was $189,000 while the average sales price of a home was $237,200.

The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of April was 387,000, which represents a supply of 4.3 months at the current sales rate. That is up from the March inventory of 372,000 units, which represented a 3.7-month supply. At the end of April 2003 there were an estimated 339,000 homes for sale.

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