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The median price for a home sold in November fell to $213,000, 2.7 percent lower than a year ago.
Sluggish sales mean fewer jobs in the construction industry, which normally helps power economic recoveries. On average, each new home built creates the equivalent of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in taxes, according to the National Association of Home Builders.
High unemployment, tighter bank lending standards and uncertainty about home prices have kept people from buying homes. Government tax credits propped up sales earlier this year but those credits expired in April.
The National Association of Realtors reported Wednesday that sales in the far larger market for previously owned homes rose to an annual rate of 4.68 million units in November. Still economists expect 2010 will finish as the worst year that market since 1997.
It could be two years or more, economists say, for enough buyers to return to bring sales of previously occupied homes back to the more healthy level of 6 million in sales annually.
One major problem facing the entire housing market is the record number of foreclosed properties. Economists say a large "shadow inventory' of such homes is waiting to come on the market as banks continue to clear out a huge backlog of properties they are in the process of taking back.
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