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Wednesday, October 28
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Numbers

New home sales slip to 676,000 pace in September as prices stay below last year

New single-family homes sold at a 676,000 annual pace in September, seasonally adjusted, down 0.6% from August and 5.3% from a year earlier, the Census Bureau and HUD said Oct. 27. The median price was $400,400, up from August but 3.9% under last year.

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Builders had 476,000 new homes on the market at the end of September, equal to 8.4 months of supply at the current pace, according to the release. That is down from 8.5 months in August but up from 8.2 months a year earlier. Of those homes, 111,000 were finished, 250,000 were under construction and 115,000 had not been started.

The $400,400 median was 3.9% higher than August's $385,400 and 3.9% lower than the $416,800 recorded in September 2025. The average price, $472,800, was 6.7% below a year ago. Through September, sales ran 2.9% behind the same months of 2025.

The regions split. Sales in the South, the biggest market, fell 6.6% from August to a 413,000 pace, and the Midwest slipped 7.3% to 89,000. The Northeast jumped 28% to 32,000 and the West rose 21.4% to 142,000, though the West is still 17.4% below last September. InvestingLive calculated that the West explains 30,000 of the 38,000 drop in the national pace from a year ago.

The Census Bureau cautions that neither the monthly nor the yearly change in sales is statistically significant, and that preliminary totals get revised by about 6.7% on average. The headline number still beat the 650,000 forecast cited by investingLive. October figures come out Nov. 25.

Why it matters: Builders hold 111,000 finished, unsold homes and prices sit below last year, a setup investingLive said could keep them leaning on incentives rather than new starts. Trades that depend on single-family starts, especially in the South, should check builders' spring schedules before adding crews.

Sources

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