The price gap between new and existing homes fell to a record low in the second quarter of 2025 — making newly built properties a more affordable option for many buyers, according to Realtor.com’s quarterly new construction report released Thursday. The nationwide premium for new homes dropped to 7.8% as builders held prices steady while […]
Realtor.com: Price premium for new homes sinks to all-time low Read More »
In today’s report, new home sales fell short of sales estimates and experienced negative sales revisions, while inventory levels increased, which explains why residential construction is in a recession. However, today’s data doesn’t indicate a crash in new home sales. Instead, it highlights my concerns from December 2024: homebuilders are accumulating a lot of completed
New home sales show why residential construction is in a recession Read More »
The enormous scale of the trade war initiated by President Donald Trump has the potential to upend practically every aspect of the economy, and the most vulnerable space in the real estate industry is homebuilding. Trump has targeted a number of key trading partners for homebuilders — including Canada, Mexico, China and Vietnam. He’s either
Homebuilders are weathering the trade war — for now Read More »
New-home sales have been a relative bright spot in an otherwise stagnant housing market. But that’s changing and homebuilders recognize it. According to June 2025 data released Friday by the U.S. Census Bureau, single-family home construction is down year over year at every stage of the process. This includes permits (-8.4%), starts (-10%), completions (-15.5%)
Single-family home construction declines are accelerating Read More »
Housing inventory growth has been a blessing for the existing home sales market, cooling price growth and giving homebuyers a bit more advantage in 2025. However, as we all know, the inventory growth has been detrimental to the homebuilders this year. On Monday, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, posted on X about the
Housing inventory growth: Good for buyers, bad for builders Read More »
New home sales missed sales estimates significantly in Wednesday’s report and we have negative revisions to the previous months. The builders’ profit margins are dwindling, which means housing construction, which has been at early COVID-19 recession levels for some time, could worsen if mortgage rates stay elevated or head even higher. So, instead of focusing
US housing construction is dead with current mortgage rates Read More »
Even though new home sales showed growth last month, the homebuilders — both big and small — have no desire to grow housing permits or starts with 7% mortgage rates. Housing starts and permits peaked in 2022 and have been fluctuating at levels similar to the early stages of the COVID-19 recession for some time
Homebuilders have no motivation to grow permits with 7% rates Read More »
The story for the housing market over the past three years has been, “Home sales are down, home prices are up.” Because inventory was so restricted after the pandemic, prices pushed higher even as demand weakened. That story may finally be inverting as unsold inventory of homes is now great enough that home prices are
How to think about home prices for the rest of 2025 Read More »
I know this is a crazy stat, given how much the builders’ confidence is falling, but new home sales just had the highest monthly sales print in years. Can this be revised lower in the future? Yes, just like the previous months have been. But there’s a bigger story here that I’ll address because this
Why did we just see the highest new home sales print in years? Read More »
New-home sales continue to be a bright spot in a housing market that’s struggling with high mortgage rates and other economic headwinds. According to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), new homes in April sold at seasonally adjusted annual rate of 743,000, which is a
Buyers shrug off economic uncertainty as new-home sales rise Read More »