Many home shoppers have accepted the reality of today – mortgage rates aren’t heading back to 3% any time soon. As such, financially secure consumers who are looking to move are still active in the housing market. This cohort contributed to the 61% of builders surveyed by Zonda in April that felt demand was either on track with or stronger than they expected.
This metric shows there were 753,258 new homes sold in April on a seasonally adjusted annualized rate. This was a gain of 3.1% from last month and an increase of 4.8% from a year ago. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, 67,621 homes were sold, 6.7% higher than last year and 38.8% above the same month in 2019.
Total sales volume is influenced by both supply and demand. Zonda’s New Home Pending Sales Index (PSI). The April PSI came in at 147.8, up 5.7% year-over-year. On a month-over-month basis, seasonally adjusted new home sales increased 0.5%. The index is currently 15.1% below cycle highs.
•The markets that posted the best numbers relative to last year were Philadelphia (+33.1%), Denver (+22.8%), and Atlanta (+19.1%).
•Sales were down year-over-year in eight of our select markets, led by Orlando, Jacksonville, and Dallas.
•On a monthly basis, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Seattle were the best-performing markets. Salt Lake City increased 15.1% relative to last month.
Zonda created the Zonda Market Ranking (ZMR). The ZMR accounts for both sales pace and volume, is seasonally adjusted, and is taken as a percentage relative to a baseline market average.
•The National ZMR index came in at 118.1 in April, indicating a slightly overperforming market, ranking in-line with last month and better than last year.
•Zonda’s snapshot markets were split between 80% overperforming and 20% average in April. Among Zonda’s top 50 major markets, 76% were overperforming, 14% were average, and 10% were underperforming.
•Importantly, the ZMR does not account for what it takes to sell a home. For example, securing a sale might still feel difficult in a “significantly overperforming” market, but if incentives offered result in a sale, we count the sale.
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