Commerce: New-home Sales See Rise in April

The U.S. Commerce Department reported that new-home sales rose 4.7 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 337,000, up from a revised January figure of 322,000.

The January rate was the worst since records were first kept in 1963, and yesterday’s report was actually better than most economists feared it would be

The report is "another faint but nonetheless encouraging sign that the economic slide may be moderating," wrote David Resler, chief U.S. economist at Nomura Securities.

At the current sales pace, the government estimated that it would take a year to exhaust the inventory of new homes on the market.

Source: The Associated Press, Alan Zibel (03/25/2009)