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.
A 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:
