Eye On Housing
NAHB analysis of the most recent Quarterly Sales by Price and Financing report published by the U.S. Census Bureau reveals that the share of new home sales backed by FHA loans jumped from 8.4% to 11.7% in the first quarter of 2023. It is the largest share since 2007 but remains 30% lower than the post-Great Recession average. Conventional loans financed… Read More ›
NAHB analysis of the most recent Quarterly Sales by Price and Financing published by the U.S. Census Bureau reveals that cash purchases made 11.2% of new home sales in the fourth quarter of 2022—the largest share since 1990. The share of cash purchases has climbed each of the past four quarters and six of the last seven. Although the median prices… Read More ›
NAHB analysis of the most recent Quarterly Sales by Price and Financing published by the U.S. Census Bureau reveals that conventional loans financed 76.3% of new home sales in the second quarter of 2021—the largest share since the beginning of the Great Recession in 2008. The share of sales backed by conventional loans in Q2 2021 increased 5.1 percentage points (quarter-over-quarter) from… Read More ›
Recent Census data, combined with NAHB survey results, illustrate the way in which home buyers in the lower one-fourth of the market have been squeezed entirely out of the market for new construction, and forced to look exclusively in the stock of existing homes—where the inventory of homes available for sale remains in a historically low range (at a 2.5-month… Read More ›
New data released by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, combined with recent NAHB survey data, show a mismatch between the actual prices of new homes and the prices buyers expect to pay—providing further evidence for the growing problem of housing affordability. At the end of August, the Census Bureau released 2018 data from… Read More ›
NAHB analysis of the most recent Quarterly Sales by Price and Financing published by the Census Bureau reveals that just 4.7% of new home sales in the first quarter of 2017 were purchased with cash—down from the most recent peak of 9.5% in the fourth quarter of 2014. In contrast, the share of new home sales financed with conventional mortgages… Read More ›
The price distribution of new home sales has changed markedly over the last ten years. Indeed, new home prices have increased, due to market shifts and higher regulatory costs. The following analysis uses data from the Quarterly Sales by Price and Financing reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. As shown in the following graph, the number of new homes sold… Read More ›
After two months of near perfect stability, interest rates on conventional mortgages for newly built homes declined noticeably in October, according to data released this week by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). The FHFA data show the average contract rate on the loans dropping from 3.98 to 3.92 percent, while average initial fees and charges went from 1.16 to… Read More ›
Data released today by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) show that interest rates on mortgages for new homes declined in September, but the changes were very small. The average contract rate on conventional loans used to purchase newly built single-family homes edged down by two basis points, from an even 4.00 to 3.98 percent—a decline too small to see on the chart… Read More ›
On average, the contract rate on conventional mortgages used to purchase newly-built homes increased 12 basis points in July, to 3.98 percent, according to data released yesterday by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). At 3.98, this is the highest the contract rate has been since December of last year. Initial fees have some ability to offset increases in a… Read More ›