July 1, 1986

Sales of new homes fell 11.6 percent in May, the biggest decline in more than two years, the Commerce Department reported today. Analysts attributed part of the drop to rising mortgage rates and to delays in processing loans, but they said these problems should slow housing demand only temporarily this year. New single-family homes, according to the Government report, were sold at an annual rate of 764,000 units in May. This followed a 5.7 percent decline in April. The May drop, the steepest since a 13 percent plunge in January 1984, was widespread across the country.

Mikhail S. Gorbachev accused the United States today of ignoring Soviet peace overtures and of coercing the Western European allies to spurn Soviet arms control proposals. Mr. Gorbachev's speech, at a Polish party congress, contained some of the strongest criticism of the United States since the Soviet Union began issuing arms control initiatives early this year. ''The cause of disarmament has not been advanced by a single millimeter because of the American Administration's open obstruction,'' he said. ''Worse, Washington is destroying the remaining constraints containing the arms race - the SALT II treaty and other Soviet-American agreements. American officials are not short on eloquent statements about their desire for peace and disarmament, but they are doing just the opposite.''

In an unusual partnership of community churches and businesses aimed at improving public schools, graduates of five of New York City's most troubled high schools are to be guaranteed jobs at major banks in the city. The program is intended to reverse the high dropout rates in the schools in East Brooklyn, which in some cases reach 60 percent of the student body. It also calls for the participation of parents and local church leaders in school affairs, including curriculum development. ''Traditionally what has made public schools strong is community support -the East Brooklyn Churches are going to mobilize the community of East Brooklyn behind the public schools,'' said the executive vice president of the New York State Bankers Association, James P. Murphy, who is also chairman of the board of trustees of the City University of New York.

They come in waves, weekday after weekday; hundreds if not thousands of the city's business-uniformed money movers, descending from their Wall Street towers to pump their purchasing power into a reborn South Street Seaport. And because of them, as it had for more than two centuries, ''the Street of Ships'' is once again a potent infusion for the economic lifeblood of New York. The port, an official host for the Statue of Liberty centennial celebration, will be packed this week, of course, as countless out-of-towners come down to see the several tall ships that have docked at its piers. But South Street, in just the last few years, has ceased to be a mere tourist attraction and has taken its place in the everyday flow of the city's commerce. On any given day, the men and women of Wall Street stream to the fashionable shops that now line the seaport's promenades and malls at mid-day and after work. They dine at fancy restaurants. They snack at any of the myriad of food stands. Or they merely have drinks at one of a dozen bars. And in doing so - without discounting the busloads of schoolchildren, camp groups and tours for the elderly that disgorge each day to see the sights and scoop up the souvenirs - they have revived the market.

An investment banker who had decided to bid $150,000 for a summer home near New York City recently caught himself telling the home's startled owner that he would pay $150 million. ''That,'' said James A. Stern, co-head of the primary markets group at Shearson Lehman Brothers, who related the story, ''is the kind of half it's been for the Street.'' Indeed, the volume of financings underwritten by Wall Street firms has soared to such unprecedented levels in the first six months of 1986 that investment bankers might routinely think of millions where before it was thousands, or billions instead of millions. Corporations raised a record $142.3 billion in capital by issuing stock or debt securities during the half, according to the Securities Data Company. That six-month figure was slightly higher than the underwritings done in all of 1985, which had been by far the biggest year for underwritings in Wall Street history.