NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Sales of newly constructed homes were almost flat in April -- but in a sickly housing market, economists saw a few reasons for hope.
The Commerce Department said new home sales ticked up 0.3% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 352,000. That was from a downwardly revised reading of 351,000 in March.
Analysts were looking for the rate of new home sales to rise to 360,000, according to a consensus estimate of economists compiled by Briefing.com.
"We aren't seeing a huge upswing in market conditions. But we aren't seeing things fall apart again, either," said Mike Larson, real estate and interest rate analyst at Weiss Research, in a research note.
New home sales -- which have plunged as builders struggle to construct homes to compete with drastically cheapened foreclosure properties -- were 34% below the same month a year ago, when they estimate stood at a 533,000 annual rate.
The median sales price of new homes rose to $209,700 in April, up nearly 4% from a revised median home price of $202,200. That was still 14.9% behind the median price of $246,400 the same month a year ago. The average sales price was $254,000, down 1% from a revised $257,100 in March.
Inventory reduced: Drastically reduced prices have lured in enough buyers to start chipping away at the glut of inventory that has been weighing down the market. At the end of April, the seasonally adjusted estimate of new homes for sale was 297,000, or a 10.1 month supply at the current sales rate. In January, there was a revised 12.4 months of supply on the market.
