Having slipped in June, the seasonally adjusted pace of new single-family home sales in the U.S. ticked up 4.4 percent in July to an annual rate of 714,000 sales. And if fact, the pace of new home sales in July was not only 31.5 percent higher than at the same time last year but 8.0 percent higher than in July of 2019, prior to the pandemic having hit.
That being said, while the median sale price of the new homes sold in July ($436,700) was nearly 5 percent higher than in June, it was nearly 9 percent lower than at the same time last year and 12 percent below its peak of nearly $500,000 in October of last year, with a shift in the mix of sales from June to July driving the month-over-month bump.
At the same time, while inventory levels were 5 percent lower at the end of the last month than at the same time last year, they ticked up 2 percent from June to July and are 33 percent higher than prior to the pandemic having hit, despite frequent misreports of “record low inventory levels.”
