US new home sales surge in April, beat expectations

Sales of new US single-family homes rose to their highest level since 2008 in April, official data released on Tuesday showed.

According to figures from the Commerce Department, new home sales jumped 16.6% from the upwardly-revised March rate of 531,000 to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 619,000. Economists had been expecting a pace of 523,000.

Compared to the same month a year ago, sales were 23.8% higher.

Meanwhile, the median price of a new home was $321,100, up 7.8%.

In terms of regions, sales in the Northeast rose 52.8% while sales in the Midwest fell 4.8%. In the South, sales were up 15.8%, while sales in the West increased 18.8%.

Pantheon Macroeconomics said: "The rising trend in mortgage applications has been pointing to stronger new home sales for a while but we expected to have to wait a bit longer to see sales rising to this level. It's possible that favorable seasonals due to the early Easter have boosted the April number, but we can't find consistent evidence to support that idea.

"We don't now expect sales to rise much further in the short-term, but we do hope the trend can be established around the 600K mark over the next few months."