News and Views

Getty Images The price of newly built homes plunged last month as homebuilders sought ways to attract buyers who are feeling the pinch of higher mortgage rates. The median sales price of a newly constructed home dropped 7.6% year over year, to $400,500 in February, according to a report on Monday from the U.S. Census […]

Getty Images More folks snapped up newly built homes last month thanks to lower mortgage rates. The number of new homes for sale and sold in December jumped 8% compared with just one month earlier, according to a recent government report. Sales rose 4.4% year over year, according to the seasonally adjusted numbers in the

Getty Images The numbers: U.S. pending home sales shot up in December as falling mortgage rates brought buyers back into the market. Pending home sales rose 8.3% in December from the previous month, according to the monthly index released Friday by the National Association of Realtors. Pending home sales reflect transactions where the contract has been

Mario Tama/Getty Images Home-price growth accelerated in November as the inventory of homes for sale remained unusually low. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, which measures home prices across the nation, rose 5.1% from a year earlier in November, compared with a 4.7% annual increase the prior month. On a month-over-month basis, the index

Micah Green/Bloomberg via Getty Images The numbers: Construction of new U.S. homes fell 14.8% in January as home builders scaled back new projects. The pace of construction slowed as builders curtailed their activity amid wintry weather in the U.S. in January. Housing starts fell to a 1.33 million annual pace from 1.56 million in December, the

Getty Images The numbers: Home sales rose in January as home buyers jumped on mortgage rates that were below 7% at the start of the year. Sales activity rose to the highest level since August. Sales of previously owned homes rose by 3.1% to an annual rate of 4 million in January, the National Association of

Getty Images The numbers: Sales of newly built homes in the U.S. inched up in January, even as mortgage rates rose. U.S. new-home sales rose 1.5% to an annual rate of 661,000 in January, from a revised 651,000 in the prior month, the Commerce Department reported Monday. The number is seasonally adjusted and refers to how

Getty Images The numbers: Home prices in the 20 biggest U.S. metros rose for the 11th month in a row and hit a record high amid a persistent shortage of resale homes for sale. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city price index rose 0.2% in December as compared with the previous month. Home prices in the 20

Getty Images The housing market isn’t off to a good start this year. The number of homes under contract that haven’t closed yet dropped 4.9% from December to January, according to a recent report from the National Association of Realtors®. Year-over-year pending home sales were down 8.8% in January. The culprit? Rising mortgage rates that

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images The numbers: Construction of new U.S. homes rebounded 10.7% in February to an annual pace of 1.52 million units, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. That is the biggest gain in nine months. Despite the increase, starts are still below December’s level. Economists on Wall Street were expecting a 7.4% rise