Data Analysis

The average price of a new house sold in August 2026 was $478,700, down 8.8 percent from a year earlier, and it is the only change in the Census Bureau's headline figures large enough to clear its own margin of error.

New single-family home sales ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 684,000 in August, up 6.4 percent from July and down 2.0 percent from a year earlier. Both of those changes carry confidence intervals wide enough to include no change at all.

The average sales price of a new house sold in the United States in August 2026 was $478,700, down 8.8 percent (plus or minus 7.7 percent) from August 2025. Sales ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 684,000, up 6.4 percent from July and down 2.0 percent from a year earlier. The median price was $393,700. There were 483,000 new houses for sale at the end of the month, a supply of 8.5 months. The South, the region that contains Florida, accounted for 451,000 of those annualized sales. The Census Bureau and HUD published the figures at 10:00 a.m. Eastern on September 24 in release CB26-155.

Of the eight percent changes in the release's headline text, seven carry a confidence interval wide enough to include zero. The average price decline is the one that does not.

Why is the 6.4 percent sales increase not a reliable number?

Census publishes a 90 percent confidence interval beside every percent change in this report and marks with an asterisk those whose interval contains zero. Its footnote says what the mark means: "The 90 percent confidence interval includes zero. In such cases, there is insufficient statistical evidence to conclude that the actual change is different from zero."

In the August release the asterisk is on almost everything: the sales change, both median price changes, and the monthly average price change. The only percent change in the headline text without one is the 8.8 percent annual decline in the average sales price.

Sales rose 6.4 percent from July, plus or minus 19.5 percent, an interval running from a 13.1 percent decline to a 25.9 percent increase. The annual comparison is the same story in the other direction: down 2.0 percent, plus or minus 15.7 percent. New home sales are a small and volatile slice of the market, and the monthly sample is small enough that one month's move usually cannot be separated from noise. The number reported everywhere at 10:01 a.m. is almost always inside its own margin of error.

What does the average price falling 8.8 percent tell us?

The average price change is the exception, and Census marks it as one by leaving the asterisk off. Down 8.8 percent, plus or minus 7.7 percent, means the interval runs from a 16.5 percent decline to a 1.1 percent decline. It does not reach zero, so the direction is established even though the size is not. The median tells a quieter version. At $393,700 it was 5.8 percent below August 2025, with a margin of plus or minus 8.2 percent that does include zero.

An average falling faster than the median is arithmetic about which houses sold, not a statement about what any individual house is worth. It is consistent with fewer sales at the expensive end pulling the average down while the middle of the market holds steadier. That reading is the desk's own; the release offers no explanation for the gap and no breakdown by price band.

How much new-home supply is sitting out there?

There were 483,000 new houses for sale at the end of August, which Census reports as unchanged from July and 2.0 percent (plus or minus 4.0 percent) below the 493,000 on the market in August 2025. At August's sales rate that is 8.5 months of supply, which the Bureau puts 5.6 percent below July's 9.0 months, margin plus or minus 17.2 percent, and describes as virtually unchanged from the 8.5 months of August 2025. The overhang of finished and unfinished new houses is where it was a year ago, and the sales rate has not worked it down.

What does the August report say about the South and Florida?

The South accounted for 451,000 of the 684,000 annualized sales in August, about two thirds of the national total, which makes this a national report that is mostly a Southern one. Census publishes the South as a single block of sixteen states and the District of Columbia, so Florida sits inside that figure and is broken out nowhere in the monthly release.

Southern sales rose 6.9 percent from July's revised 422,000, with a margin of plus or minus 27.7 percent. That interval runs from a 20.8 percent decline to a 34.6 percent increase, so the regional number is looser than the national one. Of the four regions, only the Midwest's 84.9 percent jump has an interval clear of zero, and it comes off a small base of 53,000 annualized sales.

The revision story is Southern as well, and it is the most useful thing in the regional table. July's national rate was revised up by 36,000 units this month. The South alone was revised up by 39,000, from 383,000 in the August 25 release to 422,000 now, while the other three regions netted slightly lower. The entire upward revision to July, and a little more, came from the region that contains Florida.

Florida's resale market is doing something different. Florida Realtors reported statewide single-family closed sales of 21,497 in August, down 1.4 percent from a year earlier, with a median price of $415,000, up 1.2 percent, and inventory down 13.0 percent. Existing-home inventory in Florida is tightening while the national new-home overhang is not moving. Those are separate surveys with separate methods, so the comparison is directional rather than exact. The desk tracks where Florida building is concentrated in its ranking of where Florida is building the most new homes, and current conditions by market on the Florida housing tracker.

What else changed when July was revised?

July's sales rate was first published on August 25 as 607,000 and is now 643,000. July's months' supply moved from 9.6 to 9.0, houses for sale from 488,000 to 483,000, the median price from $393,800 to $392,200, and the average price from $508,800 to $526,400.

That last one matters for reading the August average. Part of the 9.1 percent monthly drop in the average price is a July figure revised up by nearly $18,000 after the fact. This is the ordinary behavior of a survey that collects late reports, and it is why a single month of this series is a weak foundation for any argument.

The usable reading is the level rather than the change. A sales rate near 684,000, inventory near 483,000 units and a supply near eight and a half months describe a market that is amply stocked and selling at a pace that is not clearing it, and those levels have been broadly stable for months. The monthly percentages that generate the headlines have not been.

Limitations

Every figure here comes from Census release CB26-155, published September 24, 2026. The national figures were read twice on the Bureau's press release page with different extraction prompts and matched, and the sales rate, July revision, inventory count and months' supply were confirmed against a third party's reading of the same release. Revised July figures are compared against the July release of August 25.

The regional figures were added on September 25. The Census PDF carrying the regional table was still serving July data through the afternoon of September 24, nearly seven hours after the August figures went live on the press release page, and posted the next morning. Those values and margins were read twice with different prompts and matched. The asterisk marks do not survive the PDF's text layer, so which regional changes clear their interval is calculated here from the margins Census publishes beside them rather than read off the Bureau's marks, and that calculation is the desk's. The national asterisk pattern was read directly off the Bureau's sales and sales price paragraphs.

Census publishes no state-level new home sales in this release. Nothing in the South figures above is a Florida figure; the South block covers fifteen other states and the District of Columbia.

The confidence intervals are 90 percent intervals. The one headline change not cited with an asterisk above, the year-over-year change in houses for sale, spans zero by its own margin of plus or minus 4.0 percent. Why the average fell faster than the median is the desk's own inference. New home sales are recorded at contract signing or deposit, not at closing, so this series leads closings by several months and is not comparable to the Florida Realtors closed-sales counts, which are August 2026 statewide existing-home figures from a separate source.

Sources

U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, "Monthly New Residential Sales, August 2026," release CB26-155, September 24, 2026, census.gov/construction/nrs/current/index.html

U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, "Monthly New Residential Sales, August 2026," full release document with regional tables, census.gov/construction/nrs/pdf/newressales.pdf

U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, "Monthly New Residential Sales, July 2026," August 25, 2026, census.gov/construction/nrs/pdf/newressales.pdf

Calculated Risk, "New Home Sales Increase to 684,000 Annual Rate in August," September 24, 2026, calculatedrisk.substack.com

Florida Realtors, August 2026 statewide housing market reports, floridarealtors.org

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.