The median price of a new home rose to $337,200, up nearly 5 percent from March 2017 to the same month in 2018, according to a joint report from the Census Bureau and Dept. of Housing and Urban Development.
Breaking out new home sales data by region, the most new homes sold and on the market for sale were in the South in March, at roughly 371,000. The annual gain for this sector was 10.4 percent. The West is next with 222,000, a 28.3 percent month-over-month gain and 24.7 percent annual gain. Realtor.com reports that the Northeast had the fewest new homes sold or for sale at about 19,000, plummeting 54.8 percent from February 2018 and 52.5 from 2017. The Midwest's new home stock decreased 2.4 percent annually and monthly.
“Home prices tend to go up in the spring and the summer, because the types of homes selling are different than what’s selling in the fall and winter," says realtor.com chief economist Danielle Hale. "They tend to be larger and more family-oriented homes that sell for a little bit more ... We’re just getting into the heart of spring buying season," Hale says. "While we have a lot of buyers in the market now, we expect the number of buyers to go up in the next few months.”
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