U.S. March New Housing Sales Report (Text)

Following is the text of the new home sales report from the Commerce Department.

Sales of new single-family houses in March 2012 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 328,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 7.1 percent (±20.7%)* below the revised February rate of 353,000, but is 7.5 percent (±19.6%)* above the March 2011 estimate of 305,000.

The median sales price of new houses sold in March 2012 was $234,500; the average sales price was $291,200. The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of March was 144,000. This represents a supply of 5.3 months at the current sales rate.

New Residential Sales data for April 2012 will be released on Wednesday, May 23, 2012, at 10:00 A.M. EDT.

SOURCE: U.S. Commerce Department.

http://www.census.gov/newhomesales

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Tanzi in Washington at atanzi@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Marco Babic at mbabic@bloomberg.net