A sold home is seen in this file photo.WASHINGTON – Sales of new homes in the United States rose 3.6 percent in July to match a two-year high reached in May, the latest sign of a steady recovery in the housing market.
The Commerce Department said Thursday that new-home sales reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 372,000. That’s the same as in May, which was the highest since April 2010.
The report is “the latest in a series of data points suggesting a durable housing recovery is underway,” Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at BTIG LLC, a brokerage firm, said in a note to clients.
In the past 12 months, sales have jumped 25 percent. Still, the increase is from a historically low level. New-home sales remain well below the annual pace of 700,000 that economists consider healthy.
The housing market is making a modest but steady recovery in part because homes are more affordable: Mortgage rates have fallen to near-record lows. Housing prices are about one-third lower than at the peak of the housing bubble in 2006. Those trends have helped lift sales of both new and previously occupied homes.