U.S. New Home Sales & Prices Drop in August
Summary
- Sales decline in August.
- Regional sales drop, except for the 6.7% rise in the Northeast.
- Median sales price drop last month.
New single-family home sales fell 8.7% (+5.8% y/y) to 675,000 during August after an 8.0% (36.1% y/y) rise during July to 739,000 units (SAAR), revised from 714,000, according to estimates released jointly by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected sales of 700,000. Sales remained below the peak of 1.029 million in August 2020.
By region, sales in the Midwest dropped 17.2% (+24.2% y/y) to 77,000 in August, after a whopping rise of 60.3% (75.5% y/y) to 93,000 in July, revised up from 84,000. Sales in the West dropped 9.4% (44.1% y/y) to 183,000 in August, following the 31.2% (78.8% y/y) rise to 202,000 in July, up from a low of 106,000 in June of last year. Sales in the South declined 7.5% (-9.2% y/y) to 383,000 last month, after a fall of 5.7% (+17.0% y/y) to 414,000 in July. Bucking the trend, new home sales in the Northeast rose 6.7% (18.5% y/y) to 32,000 in August, after a 9.1% (+30.4% y/y) drop to 30,000 during July.
The median price of a new home fell 1.4% (-2.3% y/y) to $430,000 during August, down from the 4.8% (-8.7% y/y) rise to $436,600 in July. The recent peak of $496,800 was in October 2022. The average sales price of a new home rose 1.2% (-3.2% y/y) to 514,000 in August, after a 0.6% (-10.1% y/y) rise to 507,900 in July. These sales price data are not seasonally adjusted.
The number of new homes on the market rose 1.2% (-5.2% y/y) to 436,000 last month and added to the July increase of 0.2% (-6.1% y/y) to 431,000. These figures remain below the 466,000 high in October 2022 but well above a low of 281,000 in October 2020. The seasonally adjusted months' supply of new homes for sale rose to 7.8 months in August, following the July decline to 7.0 months. It remained down from a high of 10.1 months in July 2022 but remained well above its record low of 3.3 months in October 2020.
The median number of months a new home stayed on the market remained at 2.3 months in August. The reading remained up from the record low of 1.5 months in both September and October of last year but down from a high of 5.1 months in March 2021. These figures date back to January 1975.
New home sales activity and prices are available in Haver's USECON database. The consensus expectation figure from Action Economics is available in the AS1REPNA database.
Kathleen Stephansen, CBE
AuthorMore in Author Profile »Kathleen Stephansen is a Senior Economist for Haver Analytics and an Independent Trustee for the EQAT/VIP/1290 Trust Funds, encompassing the US mutual funds sponsored by the Equitable Life Insurance Company. She is a former Chief Economist of Huawei Technologies USA, Senior Economic Advisor to the Boston Consulting Group, Chief Economist of the American International Group (AIG) and AIG Asset Management’s Senior Strategist and Global Head of Sovereign Research. Prior to joining AIG in 2010, Kathleen held various positions as Chief Economist or Head of Global Research at Aladdin Capital Holdings, Credit Suisse and Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette Securities Corporation.
Kathleen serves on the boards of the Global Interdependence Center (GIC), as Vice-Chair of the GIC College of Central Bankers, is the Treasurer for Economists for Peace and Security (EPS) and is a former board member of the National Association of Business Economics (NABE). She is a member of Chatham House and the Economic Club of New York. She holds an undergraduate degree in economics from the Universite Catholique de Louvain and graduate degrees in economics from the University of New Hampshire (MA) and the London School of Economics (PhD abd).
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