US House Prices Hit Record High Validating Health of Economy

New U.S. single-family home sales surged to a more than eight-year high in April and prices hit a record high, offering further evidence of a pick-up in economic growth that could allow the Federal Reserve to raises interest rates soon.

The Commerce Department said on Tuesday new home sales jumped 16.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of619,000 units, the highest level since January 2008. The percent increase was the largest since January 1992.

March’s sales pace was revised up to 531,000 units from the previously reported 511,000 units. Economists had forecast new home sales, which account for about 10.2 percent of the housing market, rising to only a 523,000 unit-rate last month.

New home sales are volatile month-to-month and April’s increase probably exaggerates the housing market strength.

Still, last month’s gain pushed new home sales well above their first-quarter average of 531,667 units. New home sales increased in three regions, but fell in the Midwest.

The report came in the wake of fairly upbeat data on home resales and residential construction. It also added to retail sales and industrial production reports in suggesting that the economy was gathering speed after growth almost stalled in the first quarter.

Minutes from the Fed’s April 26-27 policy meeting, published on Wednesday, showed most officials considered it appropriate to raise rates in June if data continued to point to an improvement in second-quarter growth. The Fed raised its benchmark overnight interest rate in December for the first time in nearly a decade.

via Reuters

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency
trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza