WASHINGTON - Americans bought more new homes in April than they had in the previous two months, but ...

1. New home sales rise, but housing market likely to slow
WASHINGTON - Americans bought more new homes in April than they had in the previous two
months, but sales are slowing from their pace a year http://har.com/ ago.
The Commerce Department says sales of new homes rose 6.4 percent last month to a seasonally
adjusted annual rate of 433,000, slightly above the level that economists had forecast. That
compares with a revised annual pace of 407,000 in March, when purchases fell 6.9 percent. Buying
had dropped 4.4 percent in February, in part because of snowstorms.
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April sales surged in the Midwest and edged up in the South. Home-buying was flat in the West and
fell in the Northeast.
New-home sales have declined 4.2 percent over the past 12 months. The median sales price fell a
slight 2.1 percent during the past month to $275,800, the largest year-over-year decline since June

2. of 2012. The average sale price for a new home was was $320,100.
Economist Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics expect housing sales are likely to decline
as interest rates rise this year. "We think home sales will be broadly flat for the next few months but
will drop again as rates rise later this year," he said in a client note.
Although data on new home Click Here to visit the website sales can jump around from month to
month, the latest figures are consistent with other indicators suggesting that the housing sector is
slowing down. A National Association of Home Builders Survey last week showed a lackluster pace
of home construction this year.
If the real estate sector isn't as strong as it was last year, it isn't about to fall off a cliff. Sales of
existing homes rose in April for only the second time in nine months. Home Los Angeles California
real estate prices are also rising less quickly than they have over the last several years, which is
helping to keep residential real estate fairly affordable in much of the U.S.
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