NEW HOME SALES DOWN, NATIONAL INVENTORY GROWS

The pace of new home sales fell 10.5 percent last month to an annualized rate of 1.08 million, said the Commerce Department. Current inventory represents a 6.3 month supply of houses. In comparison, the supply in January was 5.3 months; in February of last year, it was 4.4 months.

"All of the numbers are basically telling you the same thing," said Patrick Newport, economist at Global Insight. "We're just going to see a continued slowdown over the next few months and it's probably going to extend into the next few years," he told the WaPo. The latest numbers on the DC market are here.