By Maria Martinez

Purchases of new single-family houses in the U.S. slightly decreased in October. Here are the main takeaways from the Commerce Department's report released Wednesday:

--New home sales fell 0.3% in October compared with September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 999,000.

--The reading beat economists expectations polled by The Wall Street Journal, who had expected an increase to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 973,000.

--October sales were 41.5% above the same month a year earlier.

--September new home sales were upwardly revised to 1,002,000 from an earlier estimate of 959,000.

--Monthly new residential sales data is volatile and often revised. October's figures came with a margin of error of 13.6 percentage points.

--The median price of a new home was $330,600, up from $322,400 the same month a year earlier.

--The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of October was 278,000. This represents a supply of 3.3 months at the current sales rate.

Write to Maria Martinez at maria.martinez@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 25, 2020 10:25 ET (15:25 GMT)