While trending up at the beginning of the year, the pace of new single-family home sales in the U.S. dropped 4.4 percent in February, prior to the impact of COVID-19 having taken hold, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 765,000 sales but remained 14.3 percent higher than at the same time last year.
At the same time, the median price of those homes which sold last month jumped to $345,900, which was 7.8 percent higher than at the same time last year, driven by an increase in higher-end sales, while the inventory of new single-family homes for sale across the county ticked down 1.8 percent to 319,000 homes, which is 6.2 percent lower versus the same time last year.
Out West, the seasonally adjusted pace of new single-family home sales dropped 17.2 percent in February to an annual rate of 222,000 sales, which is still 24.7 percent higher, year-over-year, with 10.1 percent fewer homes on the market (80,000) than at the same time last year.