Hardware Retailing The Industry's Source for Insights and Information
A slight drop in mortgage rates led to a large jump in new home sales in August, but a decrease in existing home sales, according to an analysis from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).
Sales of newly built single-family homes increased 20.5% in August, reaching a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 800,000 from an upwardly revised reading in July, according to newly released data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau. The pace of new home sales is up 15.4% from last year.
“New home sales experienced a significant surge in August, while builder confidence held steady at a low reading in September,” says Buddy Hughes, NAHB chairman and a homebuilder and developer from Lexington, North Carolina. “While this month’s figure may be subject to downward revision, we do expect a general improvement in sales over the coming months, supported by the recent decline in mortgage rates.”
New single-family home inventory declined for the third straight month to 490,000 residences marketed for sale as of August, 1.4% lower than the previous month and 4.0% higher than a year earlier.
Total existing home sales fell 0.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.00 million in August. However, on a year-over-year basis, sales were 1.8% higher than a year ago. The existing home inventory level was 1.53 million units in August, down 1.3% from July and up 11.7% from a year ago.
The median new home sales price in August was $413,500, up 1.9% from a year ago. The July median sales price of all existing homes was $422,600, up 2% from last year.
