New home sales rose in August as July's slump shrank on revision

New single-family homes sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 684,000 in August, up 6.4 percent from July, the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported September 24. Sales were 2.0 percent below August 2025.

The margin of error on the monthly gain is plus or minus 19.5 percentage points, and on the yearly decline it is plus or minus 15.7, so the true change in each case could be up or down.

The bigger shift was in last month's number. July sales were first reported at 607,000, a 10.5 percent drop from June (see our coverage of the July report). The revised July figure is 643,000, about 4 percent below a revised June. Most of the July slump is gone.

Most of the revision came in the South, where July sales were first put at 383,000 and now stand at 422,000. The Midwest went from 43,000 to 53,000. In August the Midwest jumped to 98,000, an 84.9 percent increase. That is one of three changes in the release large enough to clear its margin of error.

The West went the other direction. Sales there ran at 112,000, down from 153,000 a year earlier, a 26.8 percent drop. The South remained the largest market by far at 451,000, about two of every three new homes sold.

Prices eased. The median new home sold for $393,700, nearly flat from July's $392,200 and 5.8 percent below August 2025's $417,900. The average price fell to $478,700, down 8.8 percent from $525,100 a year earlier. The average runs higher than the median because a smaller number of expensive homes pulls it up.

For comparison, the median value of all owner-occupied homes in the country was $360,600 in the 2024 American Community Survey. That figure is based on what owners think their homes are worth, so it measures something different, but it puts the typical new home about 9 percent above the typical existing one. State-by-state figures are in our median home value by state rankings.

Supply held steady. There were 483,000 new homes for sale at the end of August, the same as in July, equal to 8.5 months of supply at the current sales pace. That was down from 9.0 months in July and the same as a year earlier.

From January through August, builders sold an estimated 449,600 new homes, compared with 463,200 in the same months of 2025. That 2.9 percent decline is also within the margin of error.

August's figures are preliminary and will be revised next month, as July's were.

Sources

Sales, inventory, and price figures, along with their 90 percent confidence intervals, are from the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development's Monthly New Residential Sales, August 2026 (Release CB26-155, September 24, 2026) and its accompanying data tables. Sales figures are seasonally adjusted annual rates except the year-to-date totals, which are not seasonally adjusted. The median value of owner-occupied homes is from the 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, table B25077.