Eye On Housing
In 2015, a total of 1,762 homes were started for sale with a price of $1 million or more according to the Census Bureau’s Survey of Construction. New homes started for sale with a price of $ 1 million or more decreased as a share in absolute number in 2015. That number was significantly lower than in 2013 (3,347 homes) and 2014 (3,019). Previous posts have discussed the upward trend in the median and average size of new single-family homes and how part of this is likely due to a historically atypical mix of buyers in the market.
In 2005, the number of new homes at this price reached a peak of 5,647 units. In the boom year of 2006, 4,966 new homes started were million dollar homes built for sale. In 2007, only 2,449 such homes were started followed by 1,028 homes in 2008. From 2009 to 2012, fewer than 1,000 of these $1 million+ homes were started every year.
In percentage terms, these expensive homes represented 1.06% of all new homes started for sale in 2015, from a peak of 1.26% in 2014 but about the same as in 2013 (0.99%). This represents a much higher percent share compared to other years. For instance, from 2008 to 2012 the percent share of $1 million or more homes started for sale was less than 0.50 percent, while during the boom period it was at most 0.66 percent.
Gosh, the number of $1M+ new homes appears small! Is this statistic a sliver of the statistic of new privately owned housing units started, Built for Sale? I would assume it excludes starts for “contract” homes, where the contractor is building on the owner’s land. The Census Bureau also reports new homes SOLD by price range, and the $750K and up range is about 28 thousand units sold…
It excludes contract built homes.