By Jann Swanson | Mortgage News Daily
New home sales managed to pull out again last time they were reported. The question was, with an improving inventory but rising interest rates, could they do it again? Analysts were pessimistic, but not quite pessimistic enough.
Sales of newly constructed homes fell in September by 5.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 553,000. Even worse news, the August increase evaporated. Those sales were revised down from 629,000 to 585,000. With those losses, sales fell behind September 2017 by 13.2 percent and May remains the last month when sales increased.
Analysts polled by Econoday had expected the Census Bureau to report around 625,000 annual sales with a range of 610,000 to 640,000. Econoday also noted that they have seen signs of price discounting on the part of builders.
