Reflecting an extension of the volatility seen in recent months, the Commerce Department released a report on Wednesday showing U.S. new home sales rebounded strongly in the month of August following a sharp pullback in the previous month.
The Commerce Department said new home sales surged up by 7.1 percent to an annual rate of 713,000 in August after plunging by 8.6 percent to a revised rate of 666,000 in July.
Economists had expected new home sales to jump by 3.9 percent to a rate of 660,000 from the 635,000 originally reported for the previous month.
The bigger than expected rebound came as new home sales in the West bounced back, spiking by 16.5 percent to a rate of 191,000 in August after plummeting by 15.9 percent to 164,000 in July.
New home sales in the South also shot up by 6.0 percent to a rate of 426,000, while new home sales in the Midwest and Northeast tumbled by 3.0 percent and 5.9 percent to 64,000 and 32,000, respectively.
The report also said the median sales price of new houses sold in August was $328,400, up 7.5 percent from $305,400 in July and up 2.2 percent from $321,000 a year ago.
The estimate of new houses for sale at the end of August was 326,000, representing 5.5 months of supply at the current sales rate. The months of supply was down from 5.9 at the end July.
Last Thursday, the National Association of Realtors released a separate report showing an unexpected jump in U.S. existing home sales in the month of August.
NAR said existing home sales surged up by 1.3 percent to an annual rate of 5.49 million in August after spiking by 2.5 percent to a rate of 5.42 million in July.
The continued increase came as a surprise to economists, who had expected existing home sales to pull back by about 0.4 percent.
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