NEW YORK - September 26, 2011 - New home sales fell once again in August, the fourth straight month of declining sales for the beleaguered home building market.

New homes sold at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 295,000 last month, a 2.3% drop from a revised rate of 302,000 homes sold in July, the Census Bureau said Monday.

That was better than the rate of 293,000 that economists were expecting, according to a consensus estimate from Briefing.com.

Even as sales were weak in August, they were still 6.1% above the same time last year, when new home sales were at an annual rate of 278,000.

"The trend in recent months has been dead flat, with sales hovering around the 300,000 mark, down more than 80% from the boom-time peak," said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, in a research note.