Old outpaces new in an unusual flip of home prices
The national median sale price for single-family homes dipped to $410,800 in the second quarter, while the median price of existing homes rose to $429,400.
A perfect storm of pressures on the U.S. housing market has spawned an unusual inversion in new and existing home prices. According to a new report from the National Association of Home Builders — which uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau and National Association of Realtors — existing homes now cost more than new homes.
Historically, new homes have been more expensive, but a mixture of tight inventory and rising prices for existing homes — combined with a steady delivery of new homes — pushed the national median sale price for new single-family homes down to $410,800 in the second quarter, while the median price of existing homes rose to $429,400.
A little history: The NAHB notes that this inversion had also happened during the second and third quarters of 2024 — though the gap between the costs of new and existing homes had gotten increasingly tighter since 2020.
While the cost of new homes spiked during the pandemic-fueled supply chain crunch, the national median price of new single-family homes has witnessed year-over-year drops for nine consecutive quarters, NAHB researchers note. Existing home prices have seen eight consecutive quarters of year-over-year increases.
Some regions seeing a different picture: As with most real estate data, the trends differ when drilling into regional stats.
In the Northeast region, the median price of a new home — nearly $800,000 — still far outpaces the $537,000 median for existing homes. Buyers in the Midwest can also expect to pay more for a newer construction as the median new home price is $385,300 versus the $328,800 median for existing homes. The median for both new and existing homes in the South are just $4,200 apart while the West has a larger gap with the typical existing home costing $115,000 more than the typical new home.
The Midwest boasts the lowest overall median price for existing homes while the West's $646,100 median was the highest. In terms of new construction, the South region had the lowest median at $372,100, while the Northeast was by far the most expensive and more than double the cost of a typical new single-family home in the South.