Housing sales, new and existing, have been comatose for over 3 years.
Ignoring the Covid spike, new home sales have gone nowhere for seven years.
New Residential Construction Report
The New Residential Construction Report for August 2026 remains a meandering to nowhere broken record.
July sales declined 10.5 percent. August sales rebounded 6.4 percent, heading nowhere.
New Home Sales
- Sales of new single-family houses in August 2026 were at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 684,000.
- This is 6.4 percent (±19.5 percent) above the July 2026 rate of 643,000, and is 2.0 percent (±15.7 percent) below the August 2025 rate of 698,000.
For Sale Inventory and Months’ Supply
- The seasonally-adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of August 2026 was 483,000. This is virtually unchanged from the July 2026 estimate of 483,000, and is 2.0 percent (±4.0 percent) below the August 2025 estimate of 493,000. This represents a supply of 8.5 months at the current sales rate.
- The months’ supply is 5.6 percent (±17.2 percent) below the July 2026 estimate of 9.0 months, and is virtually unchanged from the August 2025 estimate of 8.5 months.
Sales Price
- The median sales price of new houses sold in August 2026 was $393,700. This is 0.4 percent (±7.4 percent) above the July 2026 price of $392,200, and is 5.8 percent (±8.2 percent) below the August 2025 price of $417,900.
- The average sales price of new houses sold in August 2026 was $478,700. This is 9.1 percent (±11.2 percent) below the July 2026 price of $526,400, and is 8.8 percent (±7.7 percent) below the August 2025 price of $525,100.
Note the huge margins of error on these stats, ±19.5 PP on monthly sales and ±15.7 PP on year-over-year sales.
The Census Department does not have a lot of faith in these monthly numbers and neither do I.
However, the trends are easy to spot and that’s what matters more than any single report.
New Home Sales Annualized vs Homes for Sale Detail
Supply of new homes for sale has generally been rising. Actual sales have generally been falling.
Both measures appear to have stabilized but the number of new homes for sale is historically elevated.
New Homes For Sale by Stage of Construction
Stage of Construction Details
- For Sale: 483,000
- Not Started: 114,000
- Under Construction: 256,000
- Completed: 113,000
- Under Construction Plus Completed: 369,000
Counting vacant lots as a home for sale strikes me as silly. But the Census Department includes not started homes in its measures of supply.
The important numbers are completed and started plus completed. Those homes represent builder commitments and carrying costs.
To sell these homes, builders are under pressure to lower prices, offer financing, or other incentives.
New Homes for Sale Supply in Months
Supply in Months Detail
- All Supply: 8.5 Months
- Under Construction or Finished: 6.5 percent
- Finished: 2.0 percent
All of these numbers are historically elevated.
New Home Sales vs Existing Home Sales
One Word – Stagnant
Monthly reports are noise.
New and existing homes have both been stagnant since January 2023.
This is despite significant interest rate moves in both directions.
30-Year Mortgage Rates
Rates courtesy of Mortgage News Daily.
Pool of Price Insensitive Buyers
Taken together, the preceding two charts tell a story of price insensitive buyers.
This pool includes all cash buyers, those with huge stock market gains who are unconstrained by affordability measures, those with significant home equity who want to trade down, and speculators who believe the stock market or the Fed will bail them out.
Everyone else has been priced out of the market by a price-mortgage rate combination that is just too high.
Few existing-home owners want to trade a 3 percent mortgage rate for one again well above 7 percent.
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The Florida housing market has stalled in south Florida but in central and northern Florida there are huge numbers of new homes being built and for sale. Why? The Florida housing market was starting to tank so what did the Florida governor do? He floated a rumor that Florida would get rid of property taxes completely – if you own a home before they put the law into effect.
They did not put legislation on the floor to do so, they only started the rumor.
Then in the spring of 2026 De Santis proposed the “Save our homes from excessive property taxes amendment”. This would increase the Homestead tax exempted amount from $50,000 to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028. Then the amendment requires the legislature to create a plan to eliminate all real estate taxes. On November 3rd 60% will have to vote for the amendment. This would eliminate all but school district taxes for about 60% of Florida residents.
The revenue shortfall for counties would be devastating and while it sounds good, the reality is that Police, Fire and other basic services would face severe cuts to their funding. Basically it is defunding the police by another name and MAGA’s are taking the bait, hook, line and sinker and moving there without the amendment being passed!
I doubt there has ever been a more gullible group of people in America.
There are plans to fund from other sources. Right now counties are drunk on excessive tax money due to real estate doubling so they are spending WAY too much and it needs to be reigned in.
Getting rid of property taxes is a good thing. It’s a step in the direction of you actually owning what you bought. As a Florida resident I applaud what he is doing.
police pensions don’t grow on orange trees, old sport. it’s a total scam. ole white boots desanctimonious is a grifter
Considering inflation it works out as indexing for inflation which is important. Eliminating it would deplete the surplus quite quickly and seems to be another short term solution.
I am a former resident of Florida and not a fan of the insurance costs related to hurricane risk and the marginal schools. But we all have different taste and risk tolerance.
What do you think of the back door de-funding of police?
one of my dozen plus single and 2 family, old craftsman bungalow terrorital houses(pre 1912 statehood) houses in downtown walkable phoenix to ballparks and such, now market value 1 million usd. taxes 2500. insurance perhaps 700 depending on deductible. great city services like fire and permitting………school choice for public school kids and tons of charter schools. clean government. makes a difference. back east it is mostly grifters from TX to FL to NY and SC and Maine………
Massive cookie-cutter developments going up all around the Orlando urban area. Not quite sure where all the people are coming from. On a few youtube real-estate channels, one of the most asked questions from out-of-staters…”How close to DisneyWorld? Geez, how many times can you visit that place before it becomes boring?
as a kid, probably 10 times per year. as an adult over 18, probably once per decade.
I wonder what “sold in August” means. Closed or purchase agreement signed? The 10 Year Treasury was 4.37% on June 29. It’s 5.16% now. 30 Year Fixed mortgages are also up about 1% since then.
A new some sale is recorded at signing.
Existing home sale is recorded at closing.
The number of signed home sales falling through is at record highs