US New Home Sales Rise For First Time In 3 Months As Prices Near 5-Year Lows

With Case-Shiller reporting existing home price declines in half of America’s largest cities, and despite a weaker homebuilder confidence print, New Home Sales were expected to rebound from April and May’s ugly declines… and they did, but only very modestly.

New home sales rose 1.6% MoM (+4.8% MoM exp) marking the first rise in three months, but May’s 7.3% MoM decline was revised up to a mere 4.3% MoM decline.

However, this bounce was not enough to get annual sales positive (still down 5.6% YoY)…

Overall, new home sales have really gone nowhere for four years (but on the bright side, they are not as bad as existing- and pending-home-sales)…

It seems lower mortgage rates (admittedly having risen for the last month) did nothing to help move new home sales, and now they are on the rise again…

Median new home prices dropped for the second month in a row, back near their lowest levels since 2021…

The decline in homebuilder confidence still has a long way to go to catch down to homebuyer confidence…

Unfortunately, the decline in price is more than offset by the recent reacceleration in mortgage rates, leaving Trump’s affordability push dead in the water.