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It was an eventful week for housing data, as New Home Sales were released on Wednesday and Existing Home Sales came out on Thursday.

Working in reverse order, Existing Home Sales came in ahead of forecasts on a national level, although the sales pace has remained sluggish relative to pre-pandemic or early post-pandemic levels.

As shown below, on a regional basis, sales are strongest in the South by a solid margin, although that is historically normal. Current levels are hovering around the lows from the spring of 2020, and the same applies to the West and Northeast. As for the Midwest, sales are well below those lows.
 

Turning over to prices, trends have a bit more variation. Prices are highest in the West, and that has been the case for over a decade now. With that said, the past few years since higher rates came into play have seen far less steady gains compared to the exponential move higher from 2020 to 2022.

Likewise, the South has seen prices flat-line in the past few years amid higher inventories. The Midwest and Northeast are entirely different stories. The torrid price gains of the early pandemic years have continued for those two regions, with only a minor dip occurring in late 2022/early 2023.
 

Turning over to the New Home Sales data that was updated on Wednesday, there was a very strong print on a national scale, surging 20% month-over-month versus estimates of a small decline. The huge beat was driven by strong sales in completed homes, although sale of homes under construction also surged. Geographically, that strength was broad with all regions ticking up during the month of August.

While accounting for the smallest share of total homes, sales in the Northeast were up an impressive 72% month-over-month, and sales in the South (the largest share of national sales and inventories) jumped by 24.7%.

As shown in the second chart below, new homes for sale (inventories) have fallen meaningfully after the latest surge in sales in the South. Meanwhile, the Midwest now has some of the highest inventories for new homes since February 2009.
 

(Click on image to enlarge) 

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