New-home sales climb 11% in March to 300,000 annual units

Sales of new single-family houses in March 2011 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 300,000, 11.1 percent above the revised February rate of 270,000, according to estimates released jointly this morning by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Despite the month-over-month gain, new-home sales figures in March were still well below March 2010 estimated sales of 384,000 units.

The median sales price of new houses sold in March 2011 was $213,800; the average sales price was $246,800.

The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of March was 183,000. This represents a supply of 7.3 months at the current sales rate.

Read the full report: http://www.census.gov/const/newressales.pdf.