Expectations were for sales to fall 3.5% in February after a 0.2% decline in January. With this decline, new home sales were expected to slow to an annualized pace of 464,000.
January's figure was also revised up to an annualized pace of 500,000.
At the current pace of sales, there is 4.7 months of supply in the housing market.
Conor Sen at New River Investments noted following the report that this is the first new home sales print over 500,000 of the recovery and the highest since February 2008.
More to come ...