New-home sales tumble to record low pace in January

2/26/2009

WASHINGTON The government says new-home sales tumbled to a record-low annual pace of 309,000 in January as mounting damage from the collapsed housing market pushes the country deeper into recession.

The Commerce Department says that sales fell 10.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 309,000, the worst showing on records going back to 1963.

It also was a weaker showing than the pace of 330,000 that economists expected, and shattered the previous all-time monthly low set in September 1981.