Housing Trackers

Home prices, sales pace, new construction, building permits, and rent benchmarks — every key signal the housing market sends, updated on its native cadence.

Housing is the single biggest line item in most American budgets — and the single biggest store of wealth for most American households. When home prices rise, homeowner net worth rises. When sales stall, brokers, lenders, builders, and the construction supply chain all feel it within weeks. The housing market is one of the most lagged but most consequential signals in the economy.

Our Housing trackers cover the full pipeline. Median sale price (NAR existing-home sales) and the Case-Shiller Home Price Index for the price side. Existing-home sales and new-home sales for transaction volume. Housing starts and building permits for the construction side. Pending sales for the leading indicator that tells you what existing sales will look like in 30 to 60 days. Real-estate loans outstanding for the credit-side picture.

Each tracker pulls from the original source — NAR for existing sales, the Census Bureau for new sales and starts, S&P/Case-Shiller for the price index, and FRED as the umbrella for the FOMC-watchers' versions. Monthly cadence for most. Each chart shows enough history to recognize a cycle when you're inside one — and to know what "normal" used to look like.

Honey-Do Tracker — home maintenance for landlords and property managers

Housing 9

Home prices, sales, starts, rent, and real-estate credit.

Median U.S. Home Sale Price Quarterly median sale price of houses sold — the national benchmark. LIVE $403,200 U.S. National Rent Index Year-over-year change in CPI shelter — the cost of being a renter. LIVE 3.29% -0.10 Existing Home Sales Monthly NAR existing-home sales — the volume side of the U.S. housing market. LIVE 4,020,000.00M +0.08 New Home Sales Monthly Census new single-family home sales — builder pipeline indicator. LIVE 682.000M +0.02 Housing Starts Monthly Census housing starts — how many new homes broke ground. LIVE 1,502.000M +0.02 Real Estate Loans Outstanding Weekly Fed H.8 — total real-estate loans on bank balance sheets. LIVE $5,772.70T +0 Case-Shiller Home Price Index S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National HPI — the academic-grade home price benchmark. LIVE 327.3 +2 Building Permits Leading housing indicator — permits today are starts in 30–90 days. LIVE 1.485M +0.02 Pending Home Sales NAR's forward-looking index — contracts signed but not yet closed. LIVE 73.2 +1

137 Foundry — custom app building studio

Who Watches These Trackers?

Homebuyers

Time your purchase against the broader market — is inventory rising or falling, are prices accelerating or rolling over?

Sellers

See whether your local market is moving with the national trend, and whether to list now or wait a season.

Investors & Builders

Track housing starts, permits, and the absorption pace to size projects and time inventory.

Frequently Asked Questions

No. The median is the middle price — half of homes sold for more, half for less. The average is the arithmetic mean, which gets pulled up by a small number of very expensive sales. The median is the better measure for "typical" because it's not distorted by mansion sales. The number we show on the median-home-price tracker is the NAR existing-home-sales median.

The Case-Shiller Home Price Index tracks repeat sales of the same property over time — so it controls for the mix of homes selling in any given month. The NAR median price can swing if more expensive homes happen to sell that month. Case-Shiller is purer for measuring whether home values themselves are rising. Most analysts watch both — median for transaction velocity, Case-Shiller for true price appreciation.

Permits are the leading indicator (builders pull permits first), starts are the coincident indicator (ground breaks), and completions are the lagging indicator (homes hit market). Watching all three tells you what new-construction supply looks like 6 to 18 months out. Permits trending up means builders expect demand; permits crashing means recession risk.

Volume. Existing-home sales are roughly 5x larger than new-home sales in the U.S. — there are far more pre-owned homes than newly built ones. But new-home sales are a more leveraged signal because new construction depends heavily on credit conditions and builder confidence. Watch both.

Slowly. Prices lag the broader cycle by 6 to 12 months. The standard chain is: Fed raises rates → mortgage rates rise within weeks → buyer affordability falls within a quarter → sales volume drops in 3 to 6 months → inventory builds → prices roll over 12 to 24 months later. The reverse takes a similar amount of time. Don't expect a housing-market call to play out in 30 days.