vs Last Month
+18K
Steady improvement.
New Home Sales
U.S. Monthly · Single-Family · SAAR
0.722M
+18K vs. last month
Past 12 monthsRange 640K – 740K
vs Last Year+35K
5-Yr Avg0.690M
2005 Peak1.389M
New home sales climbed to 722,000 annualized — up 35K from a year ago. Builder rate buydowns and smaller homes have kept new sales more resilient than existing sales through the high-rate cycle.
Historical trend
Monthly seasonally adjusted annual rate.
Source: FRED · HSN1F
The long view: since 1995
From bubble peak to crash to slow rebuild.
2005 Peak 1.389MTrough 270K · 2011Today 722K
How today stacks up
vs Last Year
+35K
From 687K.
5-Yr Avg
690K
Slightly above the mean.
Healthy Range
700–900K
Long-run "normal" range.
Use this data
Tools for new-home shoppers.
About New Home Sales
New home sales is the monthly count of newly-constructed single-family homes sold in the U.S., published by the Census Bureau and HUD. It's reported as a seasonally-adjusted annual rate (SAAR). Today's 0.722M means new single-family homes are selling at a pace that would total 722,000 for the year.
New vs existing — and why it matters
Existing home sales (4.21M) dwarf new home sales (0.72M) by about 6:1. But new home sales are more economically sensitive — when rates rise, builders cancel projects, dial back inventory, and offer rate buydowns. New home sales are also the direct economic activity — they create construction jobs, drive material demand, and tie into housing starts. Economists watch new sales as a leading indicator of broader housing market direction.
Reading this chart
The 2005 boom peaked at 1.39M annually — a level not seen since. The post-2008 crash bottomed at 270K in early 2011, a multi-decade low. The 2020 pandemic surge pushed sales to 972K. Today's 722K is well above the 2008–2014 era but below 2020–21 highs. Builders have adapted to the high-rate environment by offering rate buydowns and smaller homes — which has kept new sales relatively resilient versus existing sales.
Related trackers
Other live numbers that move with — or against — this one.
Frequently asked
What this number means, and what it doesn't.
Builders can offer concessions — rate buydowns, closing cost credits, upgrades — that individual sellers usually can't match. They also build smaller, more affordable homes when demand softens. Existing sellers are stuck with their pricing and locked-in low rates that prevent listings.
Builders pay your lender upfront to give you a lower rate. Common: "2-1 buydown" means 2 pts lower in year 1, 1 pt lower in year 2, then your full quoted rate after that. Effectively, the builder is using their margin to disguise a price cut as a rate reduction.
On average, new homes are more expensive (median ~$420K vs $438K for existing) — but with newer features, energy efficiency, and builder warranties. Per-square-foot they're comparable. Builders have shifted toward smaller homes since 2022 to maintain affordability at higher rates.
Starts are homes where construction began this month. Sales are homes sold this month. Both are leading indicators of housing health. Starts of 1.385M annually + sales of 0.722M suggests builders are still committing to new projects at a pace that exceeds current sell-through.
Methodology
Source
Pulled from FRED · HSN1F and cached on the EvvyTools server.
Update schedule
Refreshed automatically by our cron whenever the upstream source publishes a new value. Historical values are not revised after publication.
How we compute
Display value is the raw published number, unrounded. Comparison stats use the closest available reference date. We never edit the underlying data.