 This is a Bloomberg Money Minute. May is typically a strong month for home sales, but not this year, at least when it came to new homes. The Commerce Department says U.S. new home sales fell 11.3 percent last month to the slowest pace since November. That drop was bigger than almost all estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The chief factor holding back sales was a lack of affordability, with mortgage rates more than double their levels from the end of 2021.