New Home Sales Down 10.9% In September

By Jill Mislinski

This morning’s release of the September New Home Sales from the Census Bureau came in at 603K, down 10.9% month-over-month from a revised 677K in August. The Investing.com forecast was for 585K. The median home price is now at $470.6K.

Here is the opening from the report:

New Home Sales

Sales of new single‐family houses in September 2022 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 603,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 10.9 percent (±15.2 percent)* below the revised August rate of 677,000 and is 17.6 percent (±15.9 percent) below the September 2021 estimate of 732,000.

Sales Price

The median sales price of new houses sold in September 2022 was $470,600. The average sales price was $517,700. [Full Report]

For a longer-term perspective, here is a snapshot of the data series, which is produced in conjunction with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The data since January 1963 is available in the St. Louis Fed’s FRED repository here. We’ve included a six-month moving average to highlight the trend in this highly volatile series.

Over this time frame, we see the steady rise in new home sales following the 1990 recession and the acceleration in sales during the real estate bubble that peaked in 2005. Since 2011, we have seen a similar rise that has only recently retracted. We shall see if this retraction continues or is simply temporary.

The Population-Adjusted Reality

Now, let’s examine the data with a simple population adjustment. The Census Bureau’s mid-month population estimates show a 77% increase in the US population since 1963. Here is a chart of new home sales as a percent of the population.

New single-family home sales are 2% above the 1963 start of this data series. The population-adjusted version is 42% below the first 1963 sales and at a level similar to the lows we saw during the Great Recession. Today’s 30-year rate is 6.94% (per Freddie Mac).

For another perspective, here is a chart of the median new home sale prices back to 1963, inflation-adjusted. The data source is also the Census Bureau and can be found on the press release and website above. For inflation adjustment, we use the CPI-U, which is the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers. We’ve included a 6-month moving average for this extremely volatile metric to give us a clearer sense of the trend.

Here’s a zoomed-in look since 2000.

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Editor’s Note: The summary bullets for this article were chosen by Seeking Alpha editors.