US new home sales inched lower by 0.3% month-over-month in February, according to the Commerce Department, posting a figure of 662,000. However, this print is a 5.9% increase from this time last year.

Yahoo Finance Live breaks down the housing data that just fell short of Wall Street expectations.

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Editor's note: This article was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video Transcript

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- And we want to get to some breaking news. New home sales coming out for the month of February coming in at 662,000. That was a decline of about 3/10 of a percent coming in below the prior reading here. New home sales falling about 2,000 in February from the prior month.

Now, the median new home sale price falling 7.6% on a year over year basis here, just over $400,000, $400,500, and average selling price at $485,000. So again, new home sales falling for the month of February, falling to $662,000, which was just below what the Street was looking for here, Maddie.

- And that's not too surprising given that last month it was a record for new home sales since February of 2023. But interesting to note that Goolsbee, on our program earlier, speaking exclusively with our own Jen Schonberger, saying that the main puzzle with inflation is housing. He said we've got to get housing under control.

Interesting that he was kind of going against the boss Jay Powell there with that comment, who last week said, housing, it's no big deal. So it's going to be interesting to see how that continues to shake out given that these new home sales underestimates but still pretty strong.