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 PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Government data showing an unexpected surge in new home sales weren't much comfort to luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc., which reported a 79 percent drop in second-quarter profits Thursday.
The Commerce Department reported that sales of new single-family homes jumped 16.2 percent in April — a 14-year high — to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 981,000 units. Economists were expecting just a 0.2 percent gain. However, the median price of a new home dropped by the largest amount on record.
Economists were pleasantly surprised by the showing in April, the start of the home-buying season, but remain cautiously optimistic because the surge in demand seems to have been driven by price cuts instead of more sustainable factors like consumer confidence.
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