COSTELLO: I know you want to hear some good news this morning. This just in to us: new home sales soared last month -- and I mean soared. Alison Kosik is here to tell us how much. Good morning.</s>ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Carol. This is an eye-popping number. The sales of new homes in October jumping 25 percent in October from September; you look at it compared it to a year ago, that's up 21 percent -- more than 21 percent. It's actually winds up being the biggest monthly increase in 30 years. And you look at the number of homes -- the number of homes that were selling is like what we see in the summer months. You usually see these new home sales slow down in these winter months. And this is despite higher mortgage rates. You know, mortgage rates have been ticking higher. So you may be seeing Americans getting out there and trying to buy new homes now because the worry is that the Fed may look to raise interest rates. One thing to keep in mind, though, new home sales only account for about 10 percent of the overall housing market. So they're only a small piece. But the good news is that this were to create a domino effect because when these new homes go up, that creates a lot of employment -- construction workers. And once those people move in to these new homes -- guess what they're doing -- they're going to Lowe's, they're going to Home Depot and buying stuff. So this kind of helps the economy overall. Once again, new home sales in October up 25 percent from September -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: All right. Well, thanks for that little bit of sunshine this morning. Alison Kosik. I'll be right back.
New Home Sales Surge in October