WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - U.S. home builders have slashed their average prices by a record amount, but sales still plunged by 8.5% to a 17-year low in March, the Commerce Department estimated Thursday. The decline in new-home sales to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 526,000 was much weaker than the 577,000 pace expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. The report gives little hope that the housing market is near a bottom. New-home sales are down 36.6% compared with a year ago. The months' supply of homes on the market rose to 11 months, the most in 27 years. Median sales prices have fallen 13.3% in the past year to $227,600.
