New Home Sales Rise, but Downward Revisions to Prior Data

New home sales in the U.S. rebounded by 2.4% to an annual pace of 515k in July, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. Despite the percentage gain, that pace of sales is much lower than expected following 46k of downward revisions to the previous data.

June's pace of sales was revised down to 503k, down from an originally reported 530k. Based on that data, economists were expecting July data to fall 0.9% to 525k.

The median sale price of new houses sold in July was $230,700, up from June's revised median of $230,100.

The pace of sales is 35.3% below the July 2007 estimate of 796k.

The overhang of supply fell to a 10.1-month supply, down from June's upwardly revised 10.7-month supply, which was originally reported at 10.0 months.

Regionally, the results were mixed. Leading the headline advance was a 14k advance in the Northeast, which moved up to a sales pace of 50k, while sales in the West improved by 11k to a pace of 122k sales.

The biggest percentage decline occurred in the Midwest, where sales fell to 67k from 73k, while in the South sales fell to 276k from 283k.

The Census report follows the existing home sales report from the National Association of Realtors on Monday, which rebounded by 3.1%, more than expected, to reach an annualized pace of 5.00 million sales.

Earlier on Tuesday, quarterly results were released from the S&P Case-Shiller home price index, which reported an annual decline of 15.38% in the second quarter.

By Patrick McGee and edited by Stephen Huebl