New-home sales slip in December
This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details.
Sales of newly built homes slipped in December from the month before but were still up from a year earlier, the government reported Friday.
New homes sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 369,000 units, down 7.3% from November but up 8.8% from December 2011, the Commerce Department said. The median new-home sales price last month was $248,900.
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For all of 2012, the government estimates that 367,000 new homes were sold, up 19.9% from 2011.
Inventory of newly built homes remains tight. At the end of December a total of 151,000 new homes were available for sale, representing a supply of just about five months at the current sales pace.
[For the record: 9:35 a.m., Jan. 25: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said sales of newly built homes were up 7.3% in December compared with November. They were down 7.3%.]
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