Thursday, April 24, 2008

Ouch

CNBC says new home sales down 8.5%, to 5256K. 11 month supply of inventory, highest since 1981. Median price down 13.3%.

....even worse than it first sounded, as the previous month was revised downwards.

New single-family U.S. home sales fell by an unexpectedly steep 8.5 percent in March and the median sales prices versus a year ago dropped by the largest amount since 1970, a government report showed.

The pace of sales slowed to an annual rate of 526,000 last month, the weakest rate since October 1991, the Commerce Department said.

This follows a downwardly revised 575,000 in February and delivered more grim news to the troubled housing sector.