As prices on brand-new homes dipped in July (unlike the soaring temperatures), buyers raced to snap them up at a breakneck pace.
Sales of the never-been-lived-in homes shot up 7.5% from June to July, with owners picking up the keys to about 57,000 newly built residences, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s monthly residential construction report. That’s the most sales since October 2007, when the same number of residences went under contract. Annually, sales of the brand-new abodes were up a whopping 32.6% compared with the previous July.
The numbers were not seasonally adjusted. That means they weren’t smoothed out over 12 months to account for the ups and downs of the housing market.
The spike in sales isn’t unexpected as aspiring homeowners, frustrated by the lack of both new and existing residences on the market, have been demanding more abodes go up for sale.
“With lower mortgage rates, we’ve ended up in the sweet spot that if you have good credit and enough money for a down payment, it remains very affordable to buy a home,” says Jonathan Smoke, realtor.com®‘s chief economist. “New-home prices are coming down, and that’s key to growth in new-home sales.”
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