Sales of newly built U.S. single-family homes rose slightly in April, but are now 7 percent above the lows seen in January, a government report showed on Thursday in another indication the three-year housing slump could be ending. The Commerce Department reported that new-home sales rose a smaller-than-expected 0.3 percent to an annual pace of 352,000 units. Sales fell 3 percent in March. There were 297,000 new homes for sale at the end of April, down 4 percent from 310,000 in March and the lowest number of properties on the market in almost eight years. At the current slow sales pace, it would take more than 10 months to exhaust the supply of new homes on the market. The median sales price in April was down nearly 15 percent from a year earlier, but it was up almost 4 percent from March. Prices are likely to remain weak for several months as builders try to price their unsold homes against bargain-priced foreclosures. A record 12 percent of U.S. homeowners with a mortgage are behind on their payments or in foreclosure as the housing crisis spreads to borrowers with good credit, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Thursday.
