WASHINGTON — Sales of new U.S. homes plummeted 9.4 percent in July, the sharpest one-month drop in nearly a year. But the decline followed strong sales in previous months, and sales so far this year are outpacing last year’s.
The Commerce Department said Wednesday that new-home sales fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 571,000 in July, down from 630,000 in June. Last month’s figure was the weakest since December.
Still, sales in the first seven months of the year are 9.2 percent higher than in the same period last year. More buyers are turning to newly built houses as the supply of existing homes for sale has fallen steadily.
The housing market is mostly healthy, but sales have stumbled this summer as a supply crunch has elevated average home prices nationwide. The rising prices have made homes too expensive for some would-be buyers, even as healthy hiring has lowered the unemployment rate to a 16-year low of 4.3 percent.