As we outlined earlier this month, application volume for new home loan purchases in the U.S. was on the decline despite a year-over-year gain last month. And in fact, the seasonally adjusted pace of new single-family home sales in the U.S. dropped 12.2 percent from October to November. And while the pace of sales was still 1.4 percent higher than at the same time last year, with sales having fallen 22 percent from November of 2021 to November of 2022, it was 15.2 percent below its pace in November of 2019, prior to the pandemic having hit, and trending down.
At the same time, while the median sale price of the new homes sold last month ($434,700) ticked up around 5 percent from October, it was down 6 percent on a year-over-year basis and still over 12 percent lower than last year’s peak of nearly $500,000 and inventory levels ticked up another 2.5 percent. As such, there are 40 percent more new homes on the market than prior to the pandemic, despite continued misreporting of “record low inventory levels” and “supply constraints,” which aren’t typically accompanied by lower average sale prices, and new home inventory is back to within 4 percent of a 15-year high in the absolute as supply outpaces demand.
