Sales of New Homes in U.S. Rose in April for Second Month

Purchases of new houses rose in April for a second month as the market struggled to recover from a record low.

Sales climbed 7.3 percent to a 323,000 annual pace last month, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of economists called for sales at a 300,000 annual rate. New houses sold at a 278,000 rate in February, matching the pace in August as the lowest in data going back to 1963.