New Home Sales Increase Beats Expectations

The housing market continues to show encouraging signs of improvement. Just how encouraging becomes clearer with each new data release. For example, it was just reported that sales of previously owned homes rose nearly 21 percent in June. 

Now, new numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development show June sales of newly built single-family homes increased too, rising 13.8 percent month-over-month. 

It was the fastest sales pace since 2007 and a significantly faster pace than economists forecasted. In fact, economists polled by Reuters expected new home sales to increase just 4 percent. 

Surging new home sales are yet another sign that home buyers have returned to the market after putting their plans on hold this spring. Even when compared to last year, sales are up – with June's improvement pushing new home sales nearly 7 percent higher than they were at the same time one year ago. 

The median sales price of new homes sold in June was $329,200. The average sales price was $384,700.