The sale of new houses in the country grew by 17.5% in November and remained at an annual rate of 733,000 units, its maximum level in 10 years, reported the Department of Commerce today.
Analysts had anticipated a pace of sale of new homes much lower, 654,000 units.
Last year’s annual rate was also 26.6% higher than that registered in November 2016.
New homes represent approximately 7% of the residential housing market in the US and are counted when the contract is signed, unlike the ones used, which are computed when the contract is executed, usually one month later.
According to the report, the average price of new housing stood at $ 318,700 last month, 1.2% more than a year ago.
As for the inventory of new homes put up for sale, it stood at 283,000 units in November, which at the current rate of sales would take 4.6 months to run out. (efeusa)
