WASHINGTON, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) -- Sales of new homes across the United States fell by 26.4 percent, a record amount, last year to 774,000 units, as the housing market is experiencing the worst downturn in over two decades, the Commerce Department reported Monday.

    Regionally, new-home sales dropped by 32.2 percent in the West,26.7 percent in the Midwest and 26.3 percent in the South. In the Northeast, however, sales climbed up by 1.6 percent in 2007.

    The median price of a new home, a typical market price where half of new homes are sold for more and half sold for less, edged up 0.2 percent last year to 246,900 dollars, the lowest level in 16 years.

    For December last year, new-home sales declined 4.7 percent from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 604,000 units. That was 40.7 percent below the year-ago level of 1.019 million units.

    New-home sales for November had been revised to 634,000 units, sharply lower than the 647,000 homes estimated initially.

    The median price dropped to 219,200 dollars, down 10.9 percent from November and 10.4 percent from the same month of 2006.

    The slowdown in sales raised inventories of unsold new homes at the end of December to 495,000 units. That represented a supply of9.6 months at the current sales rate.

    The once-sizzling U.S. housing market has cooled off significantly since 2006. The slump in the housing sector is expected by economists to continue amid a widening credit crisis stemming from troubles in the U.S. subprime mortgage market, where loans are given to homebuyers with weak credit histories.