Dive Brief:
- Sales of newly built single-family houses last month sank 14.5% from February to an annualized pace of 384,000 homes, federal figures showed.
- The sales pace also was down 13.3% from March 2013, according to the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
- Some observers blamed tight credit. The extreme weather that has figured in every construction report this year got blame, too.
Dive Insight:
NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe blamed "overly stringent underwriting standards for mortgages." That explanation, rather than weather, may be supported by regional data that showed the sales pace was up in the cold Northeast last month. It was down everywhere else.