Sales of new U.S. homes accelerated strongly in December, a sign that home-buying may better this year after a lackluster 2014.
The Commerce Department said Tuesday that latest home sales climbed 11.6 % last month to a seasonally adjusted yearly rate of 481,000. The gains were not enough to offset essentially flat home-buying over the course of 2014. Just 435,000 new homes were bought (2014) last year, a modest 1.2 % improvement from 2013.
The increased in December pointed to rising sales in 2015, buoyed by the combination of strong hire in latest months and radically lower mortgage rates. Home value are also rising at a slower pace, improving affordability for would-be buyers.
Last year let down in part because builders largely focused on higher-end houses, which limited the number of would-be buyers and kept the pace of building below historic levels. Approximately 700,000 new homes were sold in the 1990s, nearly a 3rd more than in 2014. Over the past one year, median prices for new homes rose 8.2 % to $298,100.
Usual rates for 30-year mortgages dropped to 3.63 % last week, down from 4.39 % one year ago, according to the mortgage firm Freddie Mac. That steep decline makes it cheaper for buyers to borrow, helping them pay for larger and more expensive homes. So far, homeowners are mainly relying on the lower rates to refinance their mortgages.
At the same time, the growth in home values has been increasingly slowing, putting more properties within reach of buyers who had previously been priced out of the market. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index, released Tuesday, rose 4.3 % in November from one year earlier. That's down slightly from a 4.5 % pace in October and double-digit gains in early 2014.
Solid hiring over the past year should help contribute to income gains. The unemployment rate has plunged to 5.6 % from 6.7 % a year ago, as employers added nearly 3 million jobs last year, according to the Labor Department. While usual wages have barely nudged upward, the job growth has contributed to more Americans with paychecks which may spur extra home-buying.
The National Association of Realtors said last week that sales of existing homes rose 2.4 % last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.04 million.
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