ECONODAY: Sales of new homes in January, at a better-than-expected 481,000 annual pace, managed to hold onto December's big surge when sales jumped 8.1 percent to 482,000 (revised). January's strength is centered in what is by far the largest region, the South, where sales rose 2.2 percent. Sales slipped 0.8 percent in the West which is second, and a very distant second, in size to the South...
