86 Percent of New Homes Sold in March Were Over $300K
Trying to find a new home for less than $200,000 is even more impossible.
Anyone who has been thinking about buying a home or selling there is probably very aware of how strange the housing market is right now. Finding an affordable home is like a needle in a haystack and new data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows just how tough the market is right now — especially when it comes to new builds. There just aren’t many affordable homes being built.
According to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau, only 14 percent of new construction home sales in March were sold for under $300,000. As a comparison, some 34 percent of new home sales went for less than $300,000 in March of 2021 — just a year prior. In that time, 20 percent fewer homes that went for under $300,000 were on the market. And trying to find a new home for less than $200,000 is even more impossible, which made up only 1 percent of new homes sold in March 2022, or half as much the March prior.
“Buyers are facing sticker shock due to deteriorating affordability conditions and a lack of existing home inventory,” Danushka Nanayakkara-Skillington, National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Assistant Vice President of Forecasting and Analysis, said in a news release.
The picture for preowned homes isn’t any better either. Last month, the median preowned home price for all housing types was $375,300, an increase of 15 percent from the year before. Data released by Redfin, a real estate brokerage, shows that for the first time since September, competitiveness for home bidding is slowing down. But most of those changes only benefit people who can afford the higher-priced homes to begin with, as people get pushed out of the market due to rates and prices.
