Data Analysis

New homes sold at a 607,000 annual rate in July with 9.6 months of supply on the market.

The margin of error swallows the monthly decline, so supply is the story: 9.6 months of unsold new homes, nearly double the 2000 to 2019 median of 5.3.

# New Home Sales Ran at 607,000 in July, With 9.6 Months of Supply on the Market

The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that new single-family homes sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 607,000 in July.

That is 10.5 percent below June's revised rate of 678,000, though the margin of error on that comparison is plus or minus 14.0 percentage points. Census marks the change as not statistically different from zero. The annual comparison has the same issue: sales were 6.3 percent below July 2025 against a margin of plus or minus 19.6 points.

In plain terms, the monthly move is inside the noise. Anyone reporting that new home sales fell in July is reporting a number the agency itself will not stand behind.

The figure that does carry signal is inventory. At the July sales rate, the homes on the market represent 9.6 months of supply. Six months is the conventional line between a balanced market and a buyer's market, and new construction has been running well above it.

How far above is the part worth sitting with. The median months' supply from 2000 through 2019 was 5.3. July's 9.6 is nearly double that. Only six of the last 175 months have printed 9.6 or higher, and before the 2022 run-up the last time the series ran above 9.6 was April 2009, in the middle of the housing crash.

That comparison needs a qualifier, because the two situations are not the same. In 2009 supply was high because sales had collapsed to a third of their peak. Today supply is high while sales run near their five-year average, which means the numerator is doing the work rather than the denominator. Builders have kept building into a market absorbing homes at an ordinary pace, and the unsold stock has piled up as a result.

The median new home sold for $393,800 and the average for $508,800.

For scale on the sales side: the series peaked at 1,389,000 in July 2005, bottomed at 270,000 in February 2011, and averaged 678,000 across 2025. July's 607,000 sits inside that ordinary range, at the soft end of it.

The South

The South region sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 383,000, with 301,000 new homes for sale at the end of the period. The South is where the large majority of Florida's new construction sits, though Census does not break the region into states in this release, so no Florida-specific number can be pulled from it.

What it means if you are buying or selling

Nine and a half months of standing inventory is the leverage story. Builders carrying that much unsold product have reason to move on price, rate buydowns, and closing costs, and in Florida's newer subdivisions that pressure shows up as incentives rather than list-price cuts.

Resale sellers competing against a nearby builder are competing against a seller who can discount in ways an individual cannot.

Limitations

Census surveys a sample, and the sampling error on monthly changes in this series is large enough that most single-month moves cannot be distinguished from no change at all. The series is also revised, often substantially: June's rate was itself revised in this release.

A sale is counted when a contract is signed or a deposit accepted, not at closing, so the series leads closings by a matter of months.

Census prints no timezone on its release schedule, so the 10:00 release time carries no zone.

Historical figures in the charts are drawn from the Census and HUD series MSACSR and HSN1F as redistributed by FRED, retrieved August 25, 2026. FRED carries the published Census series without adjustment.

Sources

U.S. Census Bureau, New Residential Sales, July 2026, released August 25, 2026. https://www.census.gov/construction/nrs/index.html

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.