New home sales in the U.S. showed a notable decrease in the month of June, according to a report released by the Commerce Department on Thursday, with the steep drop offsetting the jump seen in the previous month.
The report said new home sales tumbled 8.1 percent to an annual rate of 406,000 in June from the revised May rate of 442,000.
While the May rate is well below the six-year high originally reported, it still represents an 8.3 percent increase from the revised April rate of 408,000.
Economists had been expecting new home sales to pull back by 5.8 percent to a rate of 475,000 in June from the 504,000 originally reported for May.
With the bigger than expected monthly decrease, the Commerce Department noted that new home sales in June were down by 11.5 percent compared to 459,000 in the same month a year ago.
The report also said the median sales price of new houses sold in June was $273,500, down 3.2 percent from $282,600 in May but up 5.3 percent from $259,800 last year.
The Commerce Department also said there were 197,000 new home sales for sale at the end of June compared to 191,000 at the end of May.
The inventory of new homes represents 5.8 months of supply at the current sales rate versus 5.2 months of supply in the previous month.
Gregory Daco, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, said, "The housing sector rebound has been slow to materialize, but Oxford Economics believes a gradual rebound is in the works with accelerating wage growth providing the necessary support to offset rising rates and prices."
On Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors released a separate report showing that existing home sales rose by more than expected in the month of June.
NAR said existing home sales climbed 2.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.04 million in June after jumping 5.4 percent to an upwardly revised 4.91 million in May.
Economists had been expecting existing home sales to rise to 4.99 million from the 4.89 million originally reported for the previous month.
With the bigger than expected increase, existing home sales rose to their highest annual rate since reaching 5.13 million in October of 2013.
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May 22, 2026 14:46 ET Minutes of the latest Fed policy session was the highlight of the week along with survey data on the U.S. housing market. In Europe, survey data signaled the trends in the euro area private sector. Further, consumer price inflation data from the U.K. was in focus. In Asia, various economic indicators from China drew attention to the health of the economy.