New home sales beat expectations in December

Sales of new U.S. homes ended 2024 on a high note in December, the Commerce Department reported on Monday, as customers took advantage of incentives from builders, leading to a second straight year of increased purchases. The annual pace of new single-family home sales accelerated 3.6% to 698,000 last month, reflecting a sharp advance in the West, and beating the 675,000 median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The sharp monthly increase by new home sales partly reflected a spike in sales in the Northeast, where new home sales skyrocketed by 41.7%. New home sales in the West also jumped by 20.3%, while new home sales in the South and Midwest slumped by 2.1% and 3.3%, respectively. The report also said the median sales price of new houses sold in December was $427,000, up 6.1% from $402,500 in November and up 2.1% from $418,300 a year ago.