Having dropped a downwardly revised 4.7 percent in January, the seasonally adjusted pace of new single-family home sales in the U.S. inched up 0.6 percent in February to annual pace of 618,000 sales, which is 0.5 percent higher on a year-over-year basis but remains 4.3 percent below average for this time of the year.
At the same time, the number of new single-family homes for sale across the county inched up to 305,000 in February, which is the most available inventory since the first quarter of 2009 and 16.0 percent higher than at the same time last year.
And out West, the annual pace of new single-family home sales dropped 17.6 percent in February to 164,000 transactions but is still running 3.1 percent higher versus the same time last year.