Mubasher: Sales of new houses in the US fell surprisingly in October, following solid gains, yet housing market remained well supported by low mortgage rates.

Purchases of newly built houses declined by 0.7% month-on-month last October to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 733,000, the US Commerce Department's Census Bureau said on Tuesday.

This compares with the upwardly revised rate of 738,000 new home sales in September.

Meanwhile, analysts polled by Reuters expected purchase to rise by 1.1% to a pace of 709,000 units in October.

It is worth pointing out that new home sales are estimated through permits, while they are usually volatile on a monthly basis.

New house sales, which make up for nearly 11.5% of housing market sales, climbed by 31.6% last month, compared to an estimate of 557,000 in the same month of last year.

The median sales price for new houses sold last month came in at $316,700, while the average sales price was $383,300.

There were 322,000 new houses on the market last month. At October’s pace, it would take 5.3 months to clear the supply of houses on the market.

By 2:42 pm GMT, the EUR/USD pair fell by 0.04% to $1.1018, while the US dollar index ticked down by 0.02% to 98.3040.