New home sales in the United States rebounded in August, ending six consecutive months of decline, to 685,000 homes sold, according to data released Tuesday by the Commerce Department.
This is an increase of 28.8 percent from the low reached in July, but it still represents a slight decrease of 0.1 percent over one year, the release said.
This is a substantial increase, as analysts had anticipated a new drop with 500,000 transactions, and unexpected, in a context of a strong increase in mortgage rates, as a result of the increase in rates of the central bank of the United States (Fed) and the sale prices, still high.
The median price of a new house is however slightly down compared to July, at 436,800 dollars, against 439,400 a month earlier, and the average price remains well above 500,000 dollars, at 521,800 dollars.
"This resurgence in new home sales highlights a real race to buy by people who want to secure still-acceptable rates before further increases come," Ian Shepherdson, chief economist for Pantheon Macroeconomics, estimated in a note.
"Sales are well above the number of loan applications, indicating that this uptick will not last. The trend remains downward and new homes for sale are at their highest level since March 2008," he added.
Sales of older homes, which account for some 80 percent of the total, fell for the seventh straight month, down 0.4 percent (nearly 20 percent year-over-year), according to figures from the National Federation of Realtors (NAR) released last week.
The median sales price of these homes, however, rose 7.7 percent year-over-year to $389,500, with a sales time of about 3.2 months.
