New home sales continued a 16-week trend running sideways, but were above analysts' projections.

Newly-released data from the Census Bureau shows that though new home sales continued their sideways trend, declines were slight and above both analyst predictions and year-over-year sales.

August 2011 sales were at 295,000, a 2.3 percent decline from July but 6.1 percent increase from August 2010 sales. Among the regions of real estate, the Midwest posted the only increase in sales, rising 8.2 percent.

In addition, sales were an improvement on analyst predictions. Briefing.com, one of the Internet’s first market analyst websites, predicted new home sales would reach just 290,000, and a Bloomberg survey was similarly low at 293,000.