01:55 PM EDT, 10/24/2024 (MT Newswires) -- New-home sales in the US rose more than expected last month while median prices at the national level picked up both sequentially and annually, government data showed Thursday.

Single-family home sales rose 4.1% on a monthly basis to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 738,000 units from August's downwardly revised print of 709,000, according to the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Analysts expected sales to come in at the 720,000 level, which would have marked a 0.6% increase from the unrevised print, according to a survey compiled by Bloomberg. Annually, new-home sales were up 6.3%.

"There was no discernible impact on sales in the South from Hurricane Helene," Oxford Economics Lead US Economist Bernard Yaros said in a note. New-home sales were slightly stronger than expected in the third quarter, which will require an upgrade to Oxford's baseline sales forecast for newly built homes, Yaros said.

Helene made landfall in Florida late in September.

Sales rose in the Northeast and South in September while coming in flat in the West and slipping in the Midwest, the government data showed. From September 2023, sales were down by double digits in the Northeast and West while increasing in the Midwest and South.

The median price of new houses sold climbed to $426,300 last month from August's $410,900 and September 2023's $426,100 price, the data showed.

New home supply dipped to 7.6 months at the sales rate in September from August's 7.9-month supply, the Census Bureau and HUD reported. The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of last month edged up 0.4% sequentially and was 8% higher year to year at 470,000 units.

The September new-home sales report marks the final major housing data point prior to the Bureau of Economic Analysis' first estimate of third-quarter gross domestic product, according to Yaros. Oxford raised its estimate for third-quarter residential investment to show an 8.5% annualized fall from its prior expectation for a 9.2% decline.