US: New home sales declined 6.9% in January vs -0.9% expected

According to the data published by the U.S. Census Bureau, new home sales in January declined by 6.9% on a monthly basis. This reading followed December's 3.8% (revised from 3.7%) increase and came in worse than the market expectation for a fall of 0.9%.

Key takeaways from the press release

• Sales of new single‐family houses in January 2019 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 607,000.
• The median sales price of new houses sold in January 2019 was $317,200.
• The average sales price was $373,100. 
• The seasonally‐adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of January was 336,000.  This represents a supply of 6.6 months at the current sales rate.