New home sales soared in May to their highest level since May 2008, rising 18.6 percent from April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 504,000 units.

Sales of new homes in May were up 16.9 percent from a year earlier, and reached a new post-recession high, according to a June 24 Commerce Department report. April's sales pace was revised down to 425,000 units, from a previously reported 433,000 units.

The report's small sample size and the month-to-month volatility of the metric may have augmented the reported growth. The 18.6 percent rise in Tuesday's report, which marked the largest one-month jump in new-home sales since January 1992, came with a margin of error of plus or minus 17.3 percent.

May's jump brought the pace of new-home sales to a six-year high. The inventory of new houses on the market was unchanged at 189,000 units. At May's sales pace, it would take 4.5 months to clear the supply of houses on the market, the fewest since June 2013. The increased sales pace brought the inventory level down from 5.3 months in April.

Sales surged 54.5 percent in the Northeast from April, and rose 34 percent in the West, 14.2 percent in the South and 1.4 percent in the Midwest. The median sale price of a new home in May rose 4.6 percent to $282,000, but declined from March's median price of $285,400.