Economists predicted a rise from November's seasonally adjusted annual rate of 370,000 home sales to 372,000. Sales, however, went the other way, dropping to an annual rate of 342,000, 8.6 percent below December 2008.
Commerce said the median sales price for new homes in December was $221,300, an increase over November's median price of $217,400. The average sales price was $290,600, up from November's $280,300.
With 231,000 homes on the market, there were fewer homes listed in December than November, but the pace of sales slowed to push the estimate of months it would take to deplete the current inventory from 7.9 months to 8.1 months, the report said.
New home sales act as a economic indicator in that home sales predict a wide variety of business activity from furniture and electronic sales to purchases of pots, pans, curtains and lawn mowers.
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