Sales of new homes fell sharply in March as the housing market remained under pressure, but the monthly decline appears in part to reflect an upsurge in home buying in February.


The Commerce Department said Tuesday that new-home sales dropped 7.1 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 328,000. February’s figures on new-home sales, however, were revised sharply upward to show a 7.3 percent gain, instead of the 1.6 percent decline that was initially reported. This suggests that warm winter weather might have pulled some sales into February that normally would have occurred in March.


As a result, new-home sales were 7.5 percent higher in March than they were a year earlier.


The median sales price of a new home was $234,500 in March, down 1 percent from the February price, the Commerce Department reported. That decline is consistent with the trend shown in the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index, also released Tuesday, which showed that prices dropped in February from January in 16 of the 20 cities it tracks. That is the sixth consecutive decline.


Sales of new homes stand at just about half the approximately 700,000-a-year pace that analysts consider evidence of a healthy market.


The supply of unsold new homes fell to just 144,000 in March — the fewest on records dating to 1963. The supply has been falling over the last two years as builders have cut back on construction.


Michael Gapen, an economist at Barclays Research, said the low inventory level should prompt a moderate pickup in housing construction and provide some support to the economy.


And the pace of decline in the S.& P./Case-Shiller home-price index has slowed. Some economists said that suggested prices were stabilizing. The index fell 3.5 percent over the 12 months that ended in February. That is the smallest annual drop in a year.


The Case-Shiller index showed that prices rose in Phoenix, San Diego and Miami only. They were unchanged in Dallas.


Sales of previously owned homes, meanwhile, rose in January and February, making this winter the best for sales in five years. Such purchases dropped back in March, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.48 million, the National Association of Realtors reported last week.


Builders are laying plans to construct more homes in 2012 than at any other point in the last 3.5 years. More jobs and a better outlook among buyers could also make 2012 the first year since 2008 that construction added to the American economy.


Separately, Americans’ confidence in the economy remained resilient this month despite continuing job cuts and declining home values.


The Conference Board, a private research group, said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index was at 69.2, down slightly from a revised 69.5 in March. Economists were expecting a reading of 70, according to a FactSet poll of analysts. The current level is below February’s 71.6, which was the highest level it had been in about a year.


Consumer confidence is widely watched because consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic activity. The current level is significantly below the 90 reading that indicates a healthy economy. But it is well above its record low of 25.3 in February 2009.