Buyers’ Strike? Sales of “New Houses” Also Slump amid Surging Supply & Spiking Prices

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Wolf Street: OK, this is now following the same script: Despite supply that has been rising for months, sales of new single-family houses by homebuilders to the public in May fell 6% from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 769,000 houses, down 23% from the recent high in January, according to the Census Bureau this morning. This sharp decline in sales occurred amid spiking prices.

similar phenomenon has been playing out in “existing” house and condo sales, where inventories rose for the third month in a row, and yet sales dropped for the forth month in a row amid a historic price spike. Something is out of whack.

The sharp drop in sales of new houses over the recent months brought them back to about pre-pandemic levels. And following the construction boom in apartments and condos over the past decade, single-family house sales are far below the boom-and-bust years of 2002 through 2007:

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