August 2023 New Home Sales: New Sales Still Strong Compared to a Year Ago

• There were 675,000 new single-family home sales nationwide in August (SAAR), down 8.7% from July but up 5.8% from August 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
• The median sales price of new houses sold in August was $403,300.
• The seasonally-adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of August was 436,000, a supply of 7.8 months at the current sales rate.

What happened: New home sales slipped from last month, but are still elevated from a year ago. 

Why it matters: Homebuilder confidence is waning, but sales are still flowing faster than a year ago when consumers were faced with the sticker shock of newly high rates. 

What Zillow Senior Economist Nicole Bachaud thinks: New construction continues to be a source of new life in the housing market, with buyers looking to find any inventory they can afford. With many homebuilders able (or forced) to offer incentives on new homes, buyers are able to afford the higher-than-existing-home prices and new home sales are still elevated from a year ago. The pace of new home construction is slowing, but there is still a large backlog of homes in the funnel that should continue making their way to the market in the coming months, giving more opportunities for home buyers to jump on the new construction train. As the existing home market remains tight for the foreseeable future, new construction will continue to be an important factor in the housing market moving forward.