ARLINGTON, Va.—New home sales increased 4.1% in April to 683,000 annualized units, while sales in March were revised down 27,000 units, new data show. Compared to last year, April’s sales were 11.8% higher.
“New home sales continued to climb last month in a housing market desperate for inventory,” said NAFCU Chief Economist and Vice President of Research Curt Long. “High interest rates have had a major impact on the housing market, but the initial impact is subsiding. Its effects are pushing more buyers to purchase newly constructed homes as existing owners are reluctant to pay off their low-rate mortgages.”
Based on current month sales, the new data show there were 7.6 months of supply in April, unchanged from March. The number of unsold homes left on the market decreased 1,000 homes to 433,000. This represents a 0.2% decline from inventory levels a year ago.
Sales by Region
Regionally, sales increased in the South (17.8%) and the Midwest (11.8%). Sales declined in the Northeast (-58.6%) and in the West (-9.1%).
Of note, the new home price, non-seasonally adjusted, fell 7.7% to $420,800 – 8.2% lower than a year earlier.
“The housing market was a huge headwind for the economy in 2022, but as long as the labor market maintains its strength, housing stands to support growth in the latter three quarters of this year,” concluded Long.
Feeling the FOMO Fever? CUToday.info Has a Prescription
Are you missing out on the latest news in credit unions? Missing the trends and developments you need to be aware of? We can help. Each morning CUToday.info delivers its daily Fresh Today news update offering the latest headlines and breaking news right to your email, with the easy-to-read headlines format allowing you to click on the stories that interest you most in order to learn more.
And it’s free!
If you haven’t yet signed up for the new email solution on which CUToday.info has partnered with ResponseGenius, you can do so here. Signing up requires less than one minute of your time—and it’s free!
Please note that after signing up you may need to go to your Spam/Junk folder and mark the morning headlines email as safe. CUToday.info does not provide its list of readers and emails to outside parties, and we will not be contacting you to sell you an extended warranty or sending you any links so you may cash in on an inheritance you didn’t know was coming.
And did we mention it’s free?
Please note and/or make your IT department or email administrator aware the emails will be coming from the domains CUTodayinfo.com and CUTodayinfoReply.com.