New home sales were at an annual rate of about 560,000 as of the end of August, a decrease of 3.4% compared with about 580,000 in July and a decrease of 1.2% compared with August 2016, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The median sales price of a new, single-family home sold in August was $300,200. The average sales price was $368,100.
As of the end of August there were about 284,000 new single-family homes for sale – about a 6.1-month supply at the current sales rate.
So, the big question is, how much impact did hurricanes Harvey and Irma have on August new home sales?
According to a FAQ page recently added to the U.S. Census Bureau’s website, the government does not yet know what the impact is, simply because the areas affected by the storms have not yet been able to report any data.
“New residential sales data are obtained from the Survey of Construction (SOC), a sample survey of new housing units from 900 permit jurisdictions and from a sample of land areas where permits are not required,” the U.S. Census Bureau explains in the FAQ. “Several areas in Texas and Florida that were impacted by hurricanes Harvey and Irma are in the Survey of Construction sample. Permits issued in August were selected for the sample. However, for single‐family permits sampled in August and prior months, information on the sales status at the end of August was collected for only about 65% of cases in the Texas and Florida counties in the FEMA Individual Assistance disaster declarations. Typically, this information is collected from respondents or by observation for nearly 95% of cases sampled for SOC.
“For projects in the Survey of Construction for which we do not receive sales information in August or September, we assume that there was no change and count the units in their previous status as for sale,” the FAQ page states. “Newly issued single‐family permits are counted as for sale if the sales status cannot be determined.”
The Census Bureau also announced that it has adjusted basically all of its new home sales data going back to October 2014 “to include additional response data that had been omitted from previously tabulated estimates.”
“Monthly median and average prices were revised downward about 1.2% on average,” the Census Bureau reports. “U.S. total quarterly and annual prices had somewhat larger downward revisions of up to 4.2%.”
All corrected estimates are available on the Census Bureau’s website.