Washington -- New home sales in the United States dropped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 309,000 in January, the U.S. Commerce Department reported Thursday.

Sales of new single-family homes declined 10.2 percent from December's revised rate of 344,000.

January's rate is 48.2 percent below January 2007, when home sales were at an adjusted rate of 597,000.

The median sales price of a new home sold in January was $201,000 with an average price of $234,600.

At the end of the month, there were 342,000 homes on the market, a 13.3-month supply of homes at the current sales rate, the Commerce Department said.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International.

New York -- Distressed home sales in some U.S. markets made up more than half the house sale transactions last year, a real estate research group said.

In Madera, Calif., 53.4 percent of all home sales in 2008 involved foreclosed homes, CNNMoney.com reported Tuesday. Another 4.8 percent involved short sales, transactions in which the sales price does not cover the seller's debt on the house.

Across the country, 20 percent of the year's sales involved foreclosed properties, while 11 percent involved short sales, research from Zillow.com revealed.

"The pace at which value is being erased from the U.S. housing stock is rapidly increasing," said Zillow Vice President Stan Humphries.

The escalating rate of home value declines shows up in big numbers on a national scale. In 2008, $3.3 trillion in home equity disappeared with $1.4 trillion of that erased in the fourth quarter.