New Home Sales Up in December

Sales of new single-family houses in December were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 698,000, according to estimates from the US Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 3.6% above the revised November rate of 674,000 and is 6.7% above the December 2023 estimate of 654,000.

The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of December was 494,000. This represents a supply of 8.5 months at the current sales rate. The median sales price of new houses sold in December 2024 was $427,000 and the average sales price was $513,600.

On a full-year measurement, an estimated 683,000 new homes were sold in 2024, which is 2.5% above the 2023 figure of 666,000.

First American Chief Economist Mark Fleming saw the data as both a positive and negative, noting, “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.”

Carl Harris, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a custom home builder from Wichita, Kansas, added, “Builders are cautiously optimistic about the building market for 2025 given a post-election policy reset that seeks to eliminate unnecessary regulations.”