New-Home Sales in U.S. Unexpectedly Drop, Dimming Early Recovery Prospects

[Purveyor]

Source: Bloomberg

March 26 (Bloomberg) -- New-home sales in the U.S. unexpectedly fell in February to the lowest since June 2000, dimming prospects for a quick revival in housing.

Purchases declined 3.9 percent to an annual pace of 848,000 last month from a revised 882,000 rate in January that was lower than previously reported, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. The supply of unsold homes at the current sales pace rose to the highest in 16 years.

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``The housing industry is still on the ropes,'' Brian Bethune, an economist at Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts, said before the report. ``The weather may have muddled up the numbers a bit last month, and it probably won't be until we see March and April figures that we'll get a clear line of sight on the direction of sales.''

Economists had forecast new home sales would rise to a 985,000 rate from a previously reported 937,000 for January, according to the median of 63 projections in a Bloomberg News survey.

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Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/regions/us.html

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Whoops!

Watch out overhead! Falling markets!

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. Unexpectedly? Hmmm, somehow that is not

the word I would use.

[Double T]

3. 'Unexpected' for those that are NOT paying attention.

It will take years for the housing market to recover; the worst is still to come.

[ananda]

4. what moran thinks it was ..ermm..

unexpected?