New Home Sales Slow At Record Pace
Sales of new homes plunged 14.7 percent in December to the slowest monthly pace on record as the hobbled homebuilding industry posted its worst annual sales results in more than two decades.
The Commerce Department said Thursday that new home sales fell in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 331,000, from a downwardly revised November figure of 388,000.
December's sales pace was the lowest on records dating back to 1963. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected sales would fall to a rate of 400,000 homes.
For 2008, builders sold 482,000, the weakest results since 1982, when 412,000 homes were sold.
Meanwhile on Monday, the National Association of Realtors said that sales of existing homes rose to an annual rate of 4.74 million in December, from a downwardly revised pace of 4.45 million in November.
December's sales had been expected to fall to a pace of 4.4 million units. according to Thomson Reuters.
The median sales price plunged to $175,400, down 15.3 percent from $207,000 a year ago. That was the lowest price since May 2003 and the biggest year-over-year drop on records going back to 1968.
Jill Schlesinger, executive vice president of StrategicPoint Investment Advisors, says the steep, and continuing drops in home prices are "astounding because, when you think about what happened between 2000 and 2006, prices doubled. So, we're seeing a retreat back to more normal levels."
On The Early Show Wednesday, Schlesinger told co-anchor Harry Smith, "It depends on where are you in the country, obviously, whether you really want to jump into the market."