Aarthi Swaminathan of MarketWatch reports that new-home sales are up nearly 9%, boosted by strength in the Northeast. He writes:
The numbers: Sales of newly built homes in the U.S. rose in March, posting the biggest increase since December 2022.
Home buyers snapped up new homes, pushing sales to the highest level since September 2023, just before the 30-year mortgage rate began its trek to 7%.
U.S. new-home sales rose 8.8% to an annual rate of 693,000 in March, from a revised 637,000 in the prior month, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. […]
What are they saying? “It is encouraging that new home sales rose by such a large margin in March, despite mortgage rates hovering around 7% for most of the same month,” Thomas Ryan, property economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a note.
“Given the lack of new single-family inventory currently available on the market, demand for new homes should be robust. The upshot is we expect new home sales to reach 825,000 annualized by end-2026, higher than they were at any point post-GFC barring a brief pandemic spike,” he added.
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