Market Brief

In the spring the new-home discount was $1,400. In July it was $40,300.

The new-home discount widened from $1,400 in the first quarter to $40,300 in July. Builders hold double the months of supply that resale sellers do.

The daily read on the numbers that set Florida housing costs: tax policy, insurance, mortgage rates and construction, and what they mean for a buyer or seller in Northeast Florida this week.

The discount on a new home got twenty-eight times bigger in two quarters

That new homes now sell for less than used ones is not news. It has been true for four straight quarters and it has been covered heavily since the summer. What has not been covered is how fast the gap is widening.

In the first quarter of 2026 the median new single-family home sold for $403,200 and the median existing home for $404,600, a difference of $1,400. That is a rounding error on a house.

In July the median new home sold for $393,800 while the median existing home sold for $434,100. The gap is now $40,300.

Two quarters, and a $1,400 discount became a $40,300 discount. The new-home median fell about $9,400 over that stretch while the existing-home median rose about $29,500. Both sides moved, and they moved in opposite directions.

The comparison that is missing from the coverage

We covered the July new residential sales release itself separately, including why the reported monthly decline is weaker evidence than it looks: new home sales, the 607,000 rate and 9.6 months of supply. The short version is that the Census monthly change carries a margin of error wide enough to swallow a double-digit percentage move, so the sales-pace number is not where the signal is. The supply number is.

What that piece does not do, and what almost nobody is doing, is set builder supply against resale supply in the same month.

Builders ended July with 9.6 months of supply. In the same month, existing-home sales ran at a 4.06 million annual rate against 1.54 million homes for sale, which is 4.6 months. Builders are carrying more than double the months of inventory that individual sellers are, and unlike individual sellers they carry it on a balance sheet with a fiscal year attached.

One correction worth making because the number is being passed around loosely: 9.6 months is not a post-2009 high. May 2026 was higher, at 10.3 months on 496,000 homes. July is elevated, not unprecedented.

Tampa is the weakest major housing market in the country

The S&P Cotality Case-Shiller index for June, released this week, put national home prices up 1.5 percent from a year earlier, an acceleration from 1.2 percent the month before.

Underneath that national figure the spread is enormous. New York led the 20 cities at 7.0 percent, followed by Chicago at 6.1 percent and Cleveland at 4.5 percent. Tampa posted the lowest reading of all twenty, down 2.4 percent year over year.

A national index rising while a major Florida metro falls is the whole Florida story in one line. Nobody in Northeast Florida should be reading national price headlines as a description of their market.

What our own data says about builder inventory

Four days ago we published an analysis of realMLS closed sales that arrived at the same conclusion from a completely different direction, and it is worth putting the two side by side because they were measured independently.

Splitting new-construction closings by whether the home was finished before the year it sold, standing builder inventory in Northeast Florida took a median 106 days to sell against 35 days for a resale, roughly three times as long. That gap has existed in every year of our record except the 2021 and 2022 frenzy, so it is structural rather than new. But it means the national months-supply figure is describing something we can see in our own seven counties: the slow inventory in this market sits on the builder side of the ledger, not the resale side.

That is also why the widening national price gap should not be read as resale sellers doing something clever. They are mostly doing nothing at all, which in a low-supply resale market has been enough.

What this does not mean

The new-home median is a mix figure and it is being pushed down deliberately. Production builders have spent the last year shifting toward smaller, cheaper product aimed at buyers who cannot reach the resale market, typically in the 1,200 to 2,000 square foot range on smaller lots. Zonda measured the median entry-level new home at $318,040 in April, down about 3 percent year over year.

So a falling new-home median does not straightforwardly mean builders cut the price of a given house. Some of it is a cheaper house. Anyone quoting the $40,300 gap as a like-for-like discount is overstating it, and a buyer comparing a new build to a resale needs to compare square footage, lot and finish level before treating the difference as money saved.

The two medians also come from different agencies with different methods. New-home figures are Census Bureau; existing-home figures are the National Association of Realtors. Economists compare them routinely and the direction of the gap is not in dispute, but the exact dollar figure carries more uncertainty than a single decimal suggests.

Mortgage rates are the constraint sitting under all of it. The 30-year fixed has run from roughly 6.1 percent in January to the mid 6 percent range through the summer, and we covered the most recent reading separately. Nothing in this week's data changes that picture.

What it means in Northeast Florida this week

If you are buying new construction here, you are negotiating with a counterparty holding 9.6 months of inventory and a fiscal year to close out. That is a materially different conversation from the one you have with an individual seller holding 4.6 months of market-wide supply and no deadline.

If you are selling a resale home, the competition is not only the house down the street. It is a builder three miles away with unsold standing inventory, an incentive budget and a rate buydown you cannot match on price alone. What you can compete on is location, lot, mature landscaping and the ability to close without waiting on a certificate of occupancy.

People also ask

Are new homes really cheaper than existing homes in 2026?

On a median basis, yes, and the gap is widening. The median new single-family home sold for $393,800 in July 2026 against $434,100 for the median existing home, a difference of $40,300. In the first quarter the same comparison was $403,200 against $404,600, a difference of only $1,400. This has now held for four consecutive quarters. The important qualification is that the new-home median reflects what builders chose to build and sell, and builders have shifted toward smaller and less expensive homes, so the gap overstates the discount on any specific comparable house.

How does builder inventory compare to resale inventory?

Builders ended July 2026 with 9.6 months of new-home supply, against 4.6 months in the existing-home market in the same month, so builders carry more than twice the months of inventory that individual sellers do. The 9.6 figure is elevated but not a record for this cycle; May 2026 was higher at 10.3 months. Our separate write-up of the July new residential sales release covers the sales-pace figures and their margin of error in more detail.

Are Florida home prices falling?

They are falling in some Florida metros while national prices rise. The S&P Cotality Case-Shiller index for June 2026 showed national prices up 1.5 percent year over year, but Tampa posted the lowest return of all twenty tracked cities at negative 2.4 percent. Florida metros are not moving together and they are not moving with the national index, so a national price headline is a poor guide to what is happening in any particular Florida market.

The takeaway

The softness in this housing market is concentrated on the builder side, and two independent measurements say so: a national months-supply figure of 9.6 against 4.6 for resale, and our own realMLS data showing standing builder inventory taking three times as long to sell as a resale in Northeast Florida. The widening price gap between new and existing homes is the visible surface of that, and part of it is builders selling a smaller house rather than discounting the same one.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau and HUD, Monthly New Residential Sales, July 2026. National Association of Realtors, Existing-Home Sales, July 2026. S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, June 2026, released August 2026. NAHB Eye on Housing analysis of Census new-home data. Zonda entry-level new home pricing, April 2026. Momentum Research analysis of data provided by realMLS for Baker, Bradford, Clay, Duval, Nassau, Putnam and St. Johns counties. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Equal Housing Opportunity.

Disclosure: Jon Brooks is a co-founder of Momentum Realty, a Florida real estate brokerage that owns and funds Florida Housing Intelligence. Momentum has a financial interest in Florida real estate transactions, including in markets named here. See our editorial standards.