- August New Home sales 0.800M
- October New home sales 0.737M vs 0.7200 estimate
- September new home sales was 0.738M
- The months’ supply is virtually unchanged from the September 2025 estimate of 7.9 months, and is 15.1 percent (±15.3 percent)* below the October 2024 estimate of 9.3 months.
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Median new-home price: $392,300, down 3.3% from September and 8.0% lower than October 2024, showing clear cooling in typical home prices.
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Average new-home price: $498,000, up 3.0% from September but still 4.6% below a year ago, reflecting a mix of higher-priced homes without reversing the broader downtrend.
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Price trend: Year-over-year declines in both median and average prices confirm housing disinflation is continuing.
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Macro impact: Cooling home prices reduce shelter inflation pressure, supporting lower long-term yields and giving the Fed more room to stay patient on rate cuts.
The data is from October. The last I checked, it is January. The New-home sales data is still delayed because of the lingering effects of the 2025 U.S. government shutdown and the resulting backlog at the Census Bureau. This gap is a direct result of the shutdown halting data collection and reporting operations for several weeks. To fill that void, some third-party estimates (like the MBA Builder Application Survey) have been used, but the official Census Bureau figures remain unpublished for those months.
President Trump recently announced a directive for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase up to $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) with the goal of pushing mortgage rates lower and improving housing affordability. Rather than the Federal Reserve buying bonds, this plan uses the large balance sheets and liquidity of the two government-sponsored enterprises to create demand for MBS, which tends to raise bond prices and reduce yields, and in theory can pull mortgage rates down modestly. The directive has already contributed to mortgage rates dipping below 6% — a level not seen in several years — providing some immediate relief to borrowers and potential refinance candidates.
While this move can narrow spreads and support rate declines in the short term, its overall impact may be limited because $200 billion represents a small fraction of the much larger MBS market. The effect is likely to be more modest than the Federal Reserve’s massive bond-buying programs during the pandemic, which drove rates sharply lower. Moreover, long-term results depend on execution, timing of purchases, and broader economic conditions.
This article was written by Greg Michalowski at investinglive.com.