United States: surprise drop in new home sales in September

Sales of new homes in the United States fell back below the million mark in September, beating analysts' expectations, Commerce Department data released Monday.

A total of 959,000 new homes were sold last month in the United States, down 3.5% from sales recorded in August which were revised down to 994,000 from 1.01 million previously estimated, the ministry said. in a press release.

In September, however, sales rose 32.1% compared to September 2019. Analysts expected sales to rise slightly to 1.02 million.

The million mark appeared to have been crossed last month before the number was revised down.

It was then a first since 2006, just before the bursting of the real estate bubble which led to the financial crisis of 2008. In September, the median price rose to 326,800 dollars but it is still lower than that of February ($ 345,000), before the pandemic.

Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, recalls that these data are very volatile and "

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This drop also comes after four months of marked increases.

However, the decline in new home sales could also reflect the slowing recovery in the labor market.

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" said Nancy Vanden Houten, economist at Oxford Economics in a note.

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