WASHINGTON -- U.S. sales of new single-family homes declined in November to the slowest pace in three months without straying off track to make 2000 the second-best year on record, according to a U.S. Department of Commerce report.
The 2.2% decline in November sales to an annual rate of 909,000 units followed a 1.1% drop the month before. Even so, declining mortgage rates helped push November sales up
1.6% from the pace set a year earlier. And while the November sales pace was the slowest since 860,000 in August, it is up from the 895,000-unit rate in November 1999.