US new home sales jumped 16% in April

24 May 2007 22:34  [Source: ICIS news]

HOUSTON (ICIS news)--US new house sales in April jumped by 16.2% over March, the largest increase in 14 years, federal agencies said on Thursday.

New home sales last month reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 981,000 units compared with the March rate of 844,000 new homes sold, according to a joint statement by the US Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The bureau would not elaborate on reasons for the increase.

Despite the sharp gain, last month's rate was still 10.6% below the 1,097,000 figure for new house sales in April 2006, the agencies said.

The median price of a house sold in April was $229,100 (€169,534), an 11% drop from March's median of $257,600, they said.

April's median price was the lowest since June 2005, when it was $226,100.

The fall in April's median price was due in part to a growing number of new houses being sold in the south, according to the Census Bureau.  New homes in the south generally cost $150,000-200,000 less than those in the northeast and the west, the bureau said.

The housing market is a key downstream consumer sector for the chemicals industry, driving demand for a wide variety of chemicals and chemicals-based products such as plastic pipe, insulation, paints and coatings, adhesives and synthetic fibres, among many others.

The US housing market has been in a slump for several months.

($1 = €0.74)

By: Al Greenwood
+1 713 525 2653

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