New Home Sales Rose 4.3% in November

A total of 490,000 new homes were sold, higher than October’s 470,000, but below the 505,000 expected.

Not only did November new home sales come in lighter than expected, but October was revised down, according to Wednesday’s report from the Census Bureau.

NAR said existing home sales tumbled 10.5 percent to an annual rate of 4.76 million in November from a downwardly revised 5.32 million in October.

Despite the signs of some loss of momentum, last month’s increase in new home sales should help allay concerns of an abrupt slowdown in activity after a report on Tuesday showed a surprising plunge in homes resales.

An advertisement for two-family homes is seen outside an oceanside community in the Rockaway area of the Queens borough of New York, September 16, 2015.

US New Home Sales continue to exhibit a slow recovery from their deep depression with 2015 poised to be the best year for home sales since 2008…

“November new home sales disappointed, but this recent volatility has become a constant”, said Ray Rodriguez, a mortgage sales manager at TD Bank.

The residential construction sector is still recovering from the housing bust and the Great Recession, which officially ended more than six years ago. The average interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 3.97%, Freddie Mac said last week, near historical lows.

Lawrence Yun, the Realtors group’s chief economist, attributed much of last month’s sales decline to new government regulations that he said have delayed closings. Sales rose 4.5 percent in the populous South and jumped 20.5 percent in the Midwest.

That is a small dip from the 5.8-month supply in October.