December new home sales post monthly 14.7 pct drop
Sales of new homes plunged 14.7 percent in December to the slowest monthly pace on record as the hobbled homebuilding industry posted its worst annual sales results in more than two decades.
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{"s" : "bzh,ctx,dhi,hov,kbh","k" : "c10,l10,p20,t10","o" : "","j" : ""} The Commerce Department said Thursday that new home sales fell in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 331,000, from a downwardly revised November figure of 388,000.
December's sales pace was the lowest on records dating back to 1963. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected sales would fall to a rate of 400,000 homes.
For 2008, builders sold 482,000, the weakest results since 1982, when 412,000 homes were sold.
