With bitterly cold weather affected many regions of the United States from the early stages of January and February, the sale of new homes across the United States has undergone a significant plunge. But while most heavily affected, the housing market was not the only sector of the U.S. economy that took a drastic hit from the extreme cold that has taken over much of the U.S.
In a statement on Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Commerce revealed that new home sales plunged by a massive 18.2% last month, bringing the nation’s seasonally adjusted sales down to 775,000 units in the last month. While January’s initial housing sales tally was reported to be 948,000 units, this figure was later adjusted to 923,000 properties.
In order to gain more insight into the latest housing market trends, internationally acclaimed news organization Reuters polled several economists, each of whom provided their own new home sales forecasts. The aggregated score provided by these economists came to 875,000 sales in February, a disappointing drop of 6.5%.
The tally of recently purchased homes is derived from a sample of houses that have been constructed according to existing building permits. As of late, new home sales form a small portion of the home sales across the United States.
