New Home Sales Fall 12.6% – Back to Recent Sales Pace Trend

After showing some life in December, new home sales fell back in January to the slow pre-December sales pace trend. New home sales came in as a seasonally adjusted annualized pace of 284,000, down 12.6% from December.

The sales decline was not uniform across the country. Sales jumped upward by over 50% in the Northeast and increased by 17.1% in the Midwest. However, most new homes are built in the Southern and Western regions, and in both new sales fell sharply. Sales were down 12.8% in the South and 36.5% in the West.

With the slowing pace of sales, the months supply of inventory rose to 7.9 months from 7.0 in December. The ratio, though still historically high, is much lower than it has been in the past couple years. Home builders have done a lot to reduce their inventories.

The median sales price fell over the month, declining by 1.4% to $233,900. Prices have been relatively high in recent months, but this is largely due to the change in the mix of homes for sales. A larger percent of homes sold were in the Northeast, where prices are higher rather than in the relatively less expensive Southern and Midwestern regions.

	Jan	Dec	Nov	Oct	Sep	Aug
Sales (mil. SAAR)	0.28	0.32	0.28	0.28	0.32	0.27
m/m % change	-12.6	15.7	0.4	-11.7	15.7	-3.2
Median Price ('000s)	$233.9	$237.2	$221.1	$207.5	$227.6	$232.1
m/m % change	-1.4	7.3	6.5	-8.8	-2.0	9.9
Months' Supply	7.9	7.0	8.3	8.6	7.6	9.1