New home sales jump in March amid spring supply bump

Yahoo Finance ^ | 04/29/2025 | Dani Romero

[SeekAndFind]

Housing activity for new residential construction climbed in March, spurred by a greater supply of houses during a crucial spring period.

Sales of new homes rose 7.4% in March to a seasonally adjusted rate of 724,000 units, up from February's rate of 676,000, according to the Census Bureau data released on Wednesday. The reading came in well above Bloomberg's consensus forecast of 685,000.

Inventory also ticked up, with 503,000 homes for sale at the end of March, a 0.6% increase from the prior month and the highest level since 2007, according to Bloomberg.

Regionally, sales in the South jumped at their fastest pace in nearly four years. Transactions also rose in the Midwest but declined in the West and Northeast.

The data shows a rise in housing activity despite challenges for homebuilders at the start of the spring selling season, including high mortgage rates and ongoing uncertainty around tariffs. Many would-be buyers are staying on the sidelines, deterred by high borrowing costs. In fact, some measures show mortgage rates approaching 7%, which has discouraged potential buyers.

Home loan rates tend to track the 10-year Treasury yield (^TNX), which has risen recently as investors retreated from the traditional safe haven. The Trump administration's tariffs and threats to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell caused a reassessment of US assets and a blow to investor confidence in the central bank's independence, though some of those pressures eased slightly on Wednesday.

Adding to affordability challenges, house hunters are also grappling with high home prices. The average sales price of a new home rose 1% to $497,700 in March, while the median sale price declined by 7.5% to $403,600.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: homes; homesales; housing; realestate

[blackdog]

Kick 20 million out, and that frees up a lot of housing.

[Sarah Barracuda]

Lowering mortgage rates by a considerable amount will help people be able to afford a home during COVID my sister bought a house her rate was 2.5 percent

[HKMk23]

I caught the tail of the dip at the end of ‘21 and locked in at 3-1/8%

Recent quotes I’ve checked are in the high fives.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

We refinanced at 2.25 around the same time.

[Ronaldus Magnus III]

Several possibilities

Any good news, about ANYTHING, will be attributed to the Hussein/Biden Regime.

Any good news, about ANYTHING, that is not immediately attributed to the Hussein/Biden Regime, will be investigated for spreading disinformation.

As a corollary to the above investigation, any entity spreading disinformation will be sanctioned by Judge Boasberg. Judge Boasberg has just announced an update to his boiler plate Restraining Orders. These model Restraining Orders can be ordered in packages of 5 and 10. The super discount price is available to those who order multiples of the 10-pack.

New updates will be released as soon as enough Judges begin ordering and using the Boasberg Restraining Order templates.

[FlingWingFlyer]

The RAT “media” better get busy covering this up.

[XRdsRev]

Existing homes sales are down though. For anyone who is not a new home builder, that is bad news.

[Rennes Templar]

The average new home sale price is $500K. In 2000 it was $200K.

[Zathras]

Scottsdale, AZ is seeing lots of Canadians selling their homes and moving back to Canada.
In the long run, probably a big mistake.

[Sarah Barracuda]

The housing market during covid was INSANE. When my sister was looking for her new home I would be checking zillow for new houses to pop up and I would email her and she would tell me “Oh that house already has 8 offers” and I was like “Wait, but it just literally hit the market an hour ago” and she would tell me that they would have offers for houses even BEFORE the ad hit the internet I dont know if we will ever have a boom like that again it was nuts

[ProtectOurFreedom]

It’s still that way in many desirable markets. My sister and BIL just sold their place of 30 years in suburban Maryland (between DC, Baltimore, and Annapolis). They had ONE open house about three weeks ago (Fri, Sat & Sun), about 30 people looked at it, they got four offers, all above asking! They close in a few days. The movers are at their house as I write! They will be staying in a motel tonight. They are retiring to a retirement community closer to family in the Amish Country of Pennsylvania.

[millenial4freedom]

why is the market in deep-blue parts of the country (Chicago, MD, even New York) still extremely intense compared to places with sane values (Texas and Florida)? It’s a strange conundrum I am trying to figure out...