New home sales fall 0.6% in March

Sales of new one-family houses in March 2009 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 356,000, according to estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The 356,000-rate is slightly below the 358,000-rate recorded in February, but 30.6% below March 2008, when the new home sales rate stood at 513,000.

At the National Association of Home Builders, the numbers are evidence of a stabilization in the marketplace, fueled by affordability.

The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of March was 311,000 -- that's down from 328,000 last month and down from 469,000 a year ago. The March figure represents a supply of 10.7 months at the current sales rate, down from 11.2 months in both last month's and last year's estimates.

"Builders are doing a great job of thinning the supply of unsold homes and positioning themselves for a slow but steady housing recovery," noted NAHB chairman Joe Robson, a home builder from Tulsa, Okla. "Today's numbers are a welcome sign that the market is stabilizing as some of the best home buying conditions in a lifetime are drawing consumers off the fence and back into the market."

The March data fell in line with NAHB's forecasts. "We continue to see evidence that the new-home sales market is bottoming out as historically low mortgage rates, attractive home prices and incentives like the newly created $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit spur more interest among consumers," said NAHB chief economist David Crowe, in a prepared statement.

Crowe pointed to the West as a key example -- a 15% gain in March can be attributed in part to California's implementation of an up to $10,000 tax credit for buyers of newly built homes. The state incentive was on top of a federal first-time buyer credit.

Compared to a year ago, all four regions of the country experienced double-digit declines in new home sales -- ranging from 29.7% in the South to 32.1% in the Northeast.

The median sales price of new houses sold in March 2009 was $201,400; the average sales price was $258,000.