By Xavier Fontdegloria

Purchases of new single-family houses in the U.S. rose in September amid strong demand and improved supply in recent months. Here are the main takeaways from the Commerce Department's report released Tuesday:

--New home sales increased 14.0% in September compared with August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 800,000.

--Sales beat the forecast of economists polled by The Wall Street Journal, who expected a 2.7% increase to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 760,000.

--Sales were 17.6% below the same month a year earlier, when sales roles to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 971,000.

--New home sales in August were downwardly revised to 702,000 from an earlier estimate of 740,000.

--Monthly new residential sales data is volatile and often revised. Data for September came with a margin of error of 17.9 percentage points.

--The median price of a new home was $408,800 in September, up from $401,500 in August.

--The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of September was 379,000. This represents a supply of 5.7 months at the current sales rate.

Write to Xavier Fontdegloria at xavier.fontdegloria@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 26, 2021 10:23 ET (14:23 GMT)