For a while now, I’ve been suggesting that the current oversupply of homes won’t go away until prices reach a level buyers are prepared to pay. Based on the latest Commerce Department data on new homes, it seems builders are reaching that conclusion as well.

The median price of new houses sold in October was $217,800 – a whopping 8.6 percent decrease from September’s $238,400. Helping feed this was a nice jump in the number of homes in the $150,000-$199,999 range. In September, homes in that category made up only 18 percent of the total; in October, that jumped to 27 percent.

It’s probably no coincidence that sales actually rose 1.7 percent from September, which marked an 11-year low. That’s nothing to write home about, especially with these numbers prone to large revisions. But these days, with sales down 23.5 percent in the past year, we’ll take a bit of encouragement wherever we can get it.

One month doesn’t make a trend. But if we see similar changes between now and late spring, we may eventually mark October as a major turning point.