New home sales in the United States plunged 14.7 percent in December 2008 to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 331,000 units, the lowest level on record, the Commerce Department reported on Thursday.

The December sales were 44.8 percent below the year-earlier level.

Regionally, new home sales fell by 28.2 percent in the Northeast last month and were down 20.2 percent in the West. In the Midwest, meanwhile, sales dropped by 5.6 percent. Sales in the South also declined by 12.1 percent.

The median price of a new home, a typical market price where half of new homes are sold for more and half sold for less, dropped by 6.0 percent in December from the year-ago level to US$206,500, the lowest level since December 2003.

A good news was that inventories of unsold new homes in December fell by 10.1 percent to 357,000 units, the lowest level since September 2003.

In light of weak demand, that still represented a supply of 12.9 months at the current sales rate, the highest since 1963.

For all of last year, new home sales dropped by 37.8 percent from the previous year.

The weak showing for new home sales showed that the country is still in the grips of the severe housing slump, which many analysts believe will last for some time, given the difficult sales environment.

(Xinhua News Agency January 30, 2009)