Having dropped a downwardly revised 8.6 percent in July, the seasonally adjusted pace of new single-family home sales in the U.S. jumped 28.8 percent in August to an annualized rate of 685,000 sales, which is effectively even with the pace of sales at the same time last year but 29.9 percent below the pace in August of 2020 and 3.0 percent below the pace of sales in 2019.
Accompanying the jump in the pace of sales, however, was a 6.3 percent drop in both the median and average sale prices of the new homes which sold. And despite the jump in sales, the net number of new homes on the market actually inched up to 461,000 homes, which represents 23.3 percent more inventory than at the same time last year, the most new homes on the market since March of 2008, and 8.1 months of inventory (which technically represents a “buyer’s market” for those who like that stat).
