Sales of new U.S. single-family homes raced to a 12-1/2-year high in January, po...
WASHINGTON - Sales of new U.S. single-family homes raced to a 12-1/2-year high in January, pointing to housing market strength that could help to blunt any hit on the economy from the coronavirus and keep the longest economic expansion in history on track.
“The strength of new home sales should generate a little extra consumer expenditures on household items like appliances and furniture, and the spending is sorely needed because the coronavirus is likely to weigh on GDP growth in the first quarter,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG in New York. The Commerce Department said new home sales jumped 7.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 764,000 units last month, the highest level since July 2007.
Financial markets have been rattled in recent days by fears that the coronavirus, which has killed more than 2,000 people, mostly in China, and spread to other countries, would undercut global and U.S. economic growth. Investors have been dumping riskier assets like stocks, with major indexes on Wall Street suffering their worst four-day percentage fall in more than a year. Money flowed into safe-haven assets like U.S. Treasuries, pushing the yield on the benchmark 10-year government bond to a record low.
BROAD HOUSING MARKET STRENGTH Goldman Sachs on Sunday cut its first-quarter gross domestic product growth estimate by two-tenths of a percentage point to a 1.2% annualized rate. Growth estimates for the January-March quarter were already on the low side because Boeing halted production of its troubled 737 MAX plane starting last month.
Reports this month showed permits for the future construction of single-family homes jumped in January to the highest since June 2007. The stock of homes under construction in January was the highest since February 2007.
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