Census Bureau, HUD: February New Single-Family Home Sales Up

(Image courtesy of Census Bureau; Breakout image courtesy of RDNE Stock Project/pexels.com)

Sales of new single-family homes were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 676,000, according to estimates released jointly March 25 by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

That’s up 1.8% from the revised January rate of 664,000. It’s also 5.1% above the February 2024 estimate of 643,000.

The median sales price of new homes sold in February was $414,500. The average sales price was $487,100.

The seasonally-adjusted estimate of new homes for sale at the end of February was 500,000–representing a supply of 8.9 months at the current sales rate.

“There were 500,000 new homes at various stages of completion for sale in February, which is a 7.5% increase compared to a year earlier,” said First American Chief Economist Mark Fleming. “The ‘mix’ of inventory available for sale by stage of construction is normalizing. In February, completed ready-to-occupy inventory increased to 119,000, which is up 35% compared to a year ago.”

However, “if one considers the number of new-home sales as a percentage of the total number of households over time, then new-home sales are down to the same levels as the early 1990s, about 0.5%, and well below the long-run average of 0.7%. If new-home sales were tracking at the long-run average percentage of total households, then the pace of new-home sales would be almost 950,000,” Fleming noted.