Having dropped 8 percent in August, the seasonally adjusted pace of new single-family home sales in the U.S. jumped 12.3 percent in September to an annual rate of 759,000 sales, which was nearly 34 percent higher than at the same time last year and 4.5 percent above its pace in September of 2019, prior to the pandemic having hit, but mortgage loan activity for new home purchases has since dropped.
At the same time, the median sale price of the new homes sold last month ($418,800) dropped 3.3 percent from August, was 12.3 percent lower than at the same time last year and 15.7 percent below last year’s peak of nearly $500,000 last year, with inventory levels having inched up another 0.7 percent from August to September and nearly 36 percent higher than prior to the pandemic, despite frequent misreporting of “record low inventory levels” in the press.
