by Caitlin Kenney

A pirate in the Gulf of Aden
harpy/Planet Money Flickr pool

Seen in California.

New home sales fell in March, with the Northeast part of the country taking the biggest hit, a 32.1 percent drop from last month. Sales of single family homes in the Western part of the country actually increased 15 percent, but it wasn't enough to prevent an overall decline of 0.6 percent from February.

Meantime, the average price of a new home dropped 12.2 percent from the same time last year. The average price of a new home in March 2009 was $201, 400 — in March 2008 the average price was $229, 300.

The Commerce Department says there were over 311,000 homes for sale at the end of March.