Home builders relied on incentives and a break in interest rates to push up new home sales in 2🍰024, helped along by a late rally in December.

December new home sales were up 6.7% year-over-year, a strong closing to help push new home sales up to an estimated 683,000 for all of 2024. That was a 2.5% increase over the prior year, according to Census Bureau data released Monday. This compares with existing home sales, wh🐎ich declined in 2024 to thei🌱r lowest levels in 30 years. 

Builders had an advantage over existing home sellers because they could offer more incentives, especially as homes became the most unaffordable in decades. 

“Builders have used incentives like mortgage rate buydowns and price cuts to soften the blow, underpinning the resilience in new home sales,” wrote Wells Fargo economists Charlie Dougherty, Jackie Benson and Ali Hajibeigi.

Housing I🐲nventory Remai🐎ns Flat as New Construction Slows

But wh๊ile sales were higher, the number of newly built homes on the market remained somewhat flat.

If every new home on the market was sold without completing new ones, the inventory of homes would run out in 8.5 months in December, the Census Bureau data showed. Economists said overall for-sale 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:inventory levels co♔uld stilꦕl remain a drag on the housing market. 

“D🙈ecember’s advance may foreshadow that 2025 will be🎐 a better year for home construction, as builders focus on smaller homes on smaller lots, and more incentives,” wrote Robert Frick, corporate economist with Navy Federal Credit Union. “But the pace of building must pick up substantially to help solve the core issue of the housing crisis: too few houses for sale.”