
New-Home Sales Rise in December

(Image courtesy of Census Bureau; Breakout image courtesy of Jessica Lewis/thepaintedsquare via pexels.com)
Sales of new single-family homes in December hit a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 698,000, the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development reported jointly.
That’s a 3.6% increase from the revised November rate of 674,000 and a 6.7% increase from December 2023’s estimate of 654,000.
An estimated 683,000 new homes were sold in 2024, 2.5% above 2023’s revised figure of 666,000.
The median sales price of a new home sold in December was $427,000, and the average sales price was $513,600.
The seasonally-adjusted estimate of new homes for sale at the end of December was 494,000, representing a supply of 8.5 months at the current sales rate.
“New-home sales are now 16% higher than the pre-pandemic average, but we are currently still only building about 10 per 1,000 households, which is about the same as in 1991. New construction has struggled to keep up with demand. Rising construction costs, zoning restrictions and a shortage of labor have all contributed to the inability to build enough homes,” noted First American Chief Economist Mark Fleming.
“To put this pace in perspective, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, we were building between 500,000 and 700,000 units a year, which equated to 15-20 units per 1,000 households,” he continued. “Post-World War II that ramped up to over a million units, peaking at 1.9 million units per year in 1950, or 44 units per 1,000 households. We have never built at this rate since.”