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WASHINGTON—Sales of new homes in the U.S. fell for the fourth month in a row in September.
Purchases of newly built single—family homes-a relatively narrow slice of all U.S. home sales—fell 5.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 553,000 in September, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.
Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected a smaller 0.6% drop.
Almost all U.S. regions experienced new-home sales declines last month, with the West seeing the largest monthly drop since the end of last year. That region has struggled with intense price growth in markets like Seattle.
In the first nine months of this year, sales grew 3.5% when compared with the same time frame in 2017. Still, the pace of new-home sales remains well below the elevated levels seen before the 2007-09 financial crisis and recession.
The months supply of homes on the market rose to 7.1 in September, the largest supply figure since March 2011.
In the broader housing market, inventory has been tight, driving up home prices and pricing some potential buyers out of the market. At the same time, skilled construction labor shortages, rising input costs and rising mortgage rates are also making home buying more expensive. Sales of previously owned homes fell 3.4% in September from the previous month, continuing the longest slump for such sales in four years.
“It remains difficult for builders to serve the market, [at] scale, at affordable price points,” said Brad Dillman, chief economist at Cortland Partners. “This inability comes despite sizeable deficits in single-family housing today.”
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