New Home Sales Plunge, Prices Rise In Still-Distorted US Housing

Sales of newly constructed US homes fell sharply in October, when the South was recovering from bad weather, volatile data released on Tuesday showed. In this instance, "sharply" is an understatement. The annual rate last month was just 610,000, the Census Bureau said. Consensus was 725,000. The decline from September's rate was a dramatic 17.3%. As the figure below shows, that counts as the largest MoM drop since 2013. The pace was the weakest in nearly two years. As a quick reminder, the